Astrid's POV

Even I could tell that Toothless was confused by the amputation. The minute Hiccup and I were both closed away from the world, the dragon was out from under the bed and sniffing the stump – and giving such bewildered expressions at both of us, and looking around like the missing foot was somewhere in the bedroom.

I stifled a laugh, and inwardly gave thanks that he wasn't blaming me for the foot's disappearance.

"Just…act like normal," Hiccup suggested, pulling himself carefully into bed. "He'll settle down."

Somehow I doubted that…but I turned the lights off and slid under the covers next to him anyway. Sure enough, Toothless's feet continued to pad around the room – though more slowly – and his throat produced soft muttering sounds.

"Astrid, come here. Astrid, come here."

I jarred out of a sound sleep to a hand pushing on my collarbone. It was Hiccup, shoving at me with almost enough force to throw himself out of bed – and talking in his sleep.

"Astrid, come here. Quickly."

Why's he pushing me away and telling me to come at the same time? Was he dreaming that I was somewhere other than right next to him – that the person next to him wasn't me?

I put my arms around him, tugging him closer and away from the uneasy precipice that was the edge of the bed. "Hiccup, you're dreaming. I'm right here." I stroked his hair and murmured semi-verbal reassurances in his ear.

Hiccup didn't settle. In fact, he got more agitated – pushing harder, talking…not louder, but more intensely. I began to get worried.

"Wake up, Hiccup – you're dreaming."

"As…come…I…" he started sounding like he couldn't breathe.

Okay, drastic-measures time. I rolled away and reached for his EpiPen – and groaned when my fingers grazed it right off the nightstand. I shaded Hiccup's eyes and turned the lamp on, squinting in the light (which fortunately wasn't that bright; he had enough sense to have a low-watt bedside lamp).

Hiccup's hand suddenly grabbed my wrist. Hard.

I turned to look and nearly had heart failure. His eyes were open, and fixed blankly on me. They were devoid of the spark I knew; it was like both when he went crazy at Scott and when he freaked out on the operating table, but at the same time different. Before I could decide what it was, he lifted up a little on his other arm and spoke again.

"Toothless wants you for something." Then he closed his eyes and fell back down, releasing my wrist. He looked like he'd never moved.

Toothless?

No green eyes peered over the edges of the bed; and Toothless usually came out when Hiccup got particularly restless, to settle him back down by either French-kissing him or mauling his neck. Where was Toothless?

I sat up and looked around – and saw the open window. Come to think of it, there was an awful lot of noise outside for the middle of the night. Carefully sliding out of bed, I crept to the window and peered out. It was very bright…

Because the moon was full.

Oh. Another raid.

Had Toothless snuck out to join them – surely not, he wouldn't do that to Hiccup – had he gone to join the fight against them, and gotten caught?

I looked down. It was a longer drop than I wanted to do, but the wall didn't look hard to climb.

My hockey stick was the only weapon I had available, so I grabbed that and tossed it down ahead of me. It was tough plastic, didn't even look organic, so I wasn't worried about a dragon stealing it; I did wait a few seconds after throwing it down, to give any dragons that might have noticed it to come and discover that it wasn't food, before coming down myself.

Nobody noticed me.

Which I appreciated, because I was in my pajamas and barefoot and armed with a stupid hockey stick. I really wasn't ready for a fight.

I hoped Toothless wasn't in one.

He had to still be on the property. I didn't want to think about what would happen if he'd gone off.

"Toothless?" I whispered, tiptoeing along the wall of the building. "Toothless, where are you?"

The garage? The doors were all closed, but…

When I was sure I could get to the garage without being spotted, I sprinted across the smooth path and listened at the human-sized door. Something was in there, making a lot of noise; not like a scavenger, more like a fight.

I turned the handle and slid inside. "Toothless?" I called softly, holding my stick at a defensive angle.

Eyes blazed in the dark; little red eyes, not Toothless's big green ones. Then all I saw was stars as the eyes' owner smashed me into the wall with the force of a truck.

Next thing I knew, I was in a catfight. Someone was ripping at my face with long nails; I grabbed her wrists and pushed back as hard as I could, and we started rolling around on the floor. She was trying to restrain me however she could; I was having none of it.

"SUBMIT!" She screamed at me.

"HELL NO!" I screamed back as I managed to pin her. "I wouldn't break for my father no matter how much he beat me, so why should I break for you?"

The other girl stopped fighting and stared at me like I'd said something insane.

She looked really odd, to be honest. She had a rather prominent nose with large nostrils, and her lips were thin; her pale and very spiky hair just increased her resemblance to some sort of parrot.

A parrot with red eyes. I knew those eyes, though I'd only seen them for a second.

I'm in a dreamscape. I'm fighting mind-to-mind with a dragon! Was I winning? I wasn't sure. I was on top of her, but what did that mean?

"You've severed from him?"

I blinked. What did that mean?

Whatever it meant, I had no intention of losing the upper hand. "Why does it matter whether I did or not?" I asked dismissively.

"He is half of your name's foundation; I can smell it. But there's no, no…" her wrists jerked in my grasp, and her nails caught at my hair, "…no loyalty tie." She sounded bewildered.

I shrugged. "So he's half my foundation, so what? Since my mother and uncle died, he hasn't been much of a role model for me. Why should I look to him when he's not helping me grow?"

The dragon-girl under me almost seemed to collapse. "Would that we had that choice."

Choice of…

Wait.

Dream Alpha. The most important figure in most (if not all) dragons' minds around here, but this particular DA was abusing the tails off his subjects. Just like my dad was doing to me, but I'd escaped…and I'd escaped emotionally long before I got out physically. I didn't answer to him on an immediate daily basis; I didn't really answer to anybody.

"Why don't you?" It seemed a reasonable question. "There's always a choice; you just have to be brave enough. If you've had enough of eating DA shit, just sever yourself from him and…"

"And I would die," the dragon interrupted. "Most dragons cannot stand alone within our own minds; we need to feed from the dreamscape."

I gaped for a second, momentarily unable to comprehend what I'd heard. Dragons literally needed each other to survive? A psychic network? But that was…

The dragon writhed under me, flinging me off – but I reflexively got my footing and all she accomplished was getting us deadlocked.

Successfully staying on equal footing seemed to have restarted my brain. Well, my ability to think. "Fuck that – if that were true, how is Toothless still alive after a month and a half?"

The dragon cocked her spiky-haired head. "The black fellow who captured me?"

So Toothless was in the garage somewhere. He set me up.

"Dream Alphas are self-sustaining; he smells like one, sort of, so perhaps he has that talent. What did you do to him, anyway? I have never smelled a dragon with so little Void before."

That got my attention. "First of all, that was Hiccup, not me." Like that would matter, considering this dragon hasn't met Hiccup. "Second, how can you have a dragon that is sort of a Dream Alpha?" I'd gotten the idea that that wasn't a sort of kind of thing: a dragon was a DA or it wasn't.

"I don't know; it doesn't make any sense."

I made a note to ask Hiccup about this in the morning. Provided I survived the night. "Okay, we'll get back to that later. Let me just recap here: a whole bunch of you dragons get together to make a giant dreamscape, and you all get feedback from it."

"…Yes."

"Feedback you need to survive."

The dragon released me and settled back. "Yes."

"And a Dream Alpha holds the whole thing together and organizes it."

"Something like that."

"But your DA is using the dreamscape against you lot, forcing you to feed him in exchange for the feedback you can't live without."

The dragon hung her head.

I let my tone sharpen with disgust. "And you're just admitting defeat?"

Her head came up again with a rattle of spiky hair, her eyes blazing. "I am Stormfly, I do not admit defeat!"

I decided right then I liked that fire. "Good to hear, Stormfly." I let go of her wrists. "Now, what would happen if you did sever yourself? As much detail as you know."

Stormfly glared at me…though she seemed to be thinking. "I…would…" She slowly shook her head. "Well, I would die. What details are you looking for?"

Fair question. "How long would it take?"

"To die? Why does that…" she trailed off and gaped at me – and for the first time, true hope gleamed. "If it took long enough there would be time to re-link…to another network – or another Dream Alpha."

"I'm sure Toothless would be glad to let you link to him." Actually I didn't care what he thought. He set me up, he could damn well feed Stormfly. "You would be free. Well, freer. Toothless wouldn't ask you to work your tail off bringing him tributes."

"All right, I'll do it!" Stormfly scratched her head – a quick little gesture – and suddenly looked a little bashful. "Can…can I ask a favor?"

"What?" What favor could I possibly do?

"Ah…can I hold your name?"

My mouth opened and closed a couple of times. What does that mean? "Uh…"

"You are strong – and you only have ties of loyalty when you want them, because they are not essential to your survival. I just want the sign of your name…for…" her hand darted out to flick my bangs back, "…for luck, I suppose."

"Wait, I never did introduce myself, did I?" I shrugged. If that was all she meant, I certainly had no problem with it. "I am Astrid Hofferson."

And then I woke up in bed.

"Whuf?" I mumbled into the pillow as I tried to sit up. Then I groaned as a couple dozen hammers started banging inside my head.

"Steady there."

Hiccup?

Well, of course he was still here; it was his room, and with only one leg he wasn't going anywhere very fast until I – his human crutch – woke up.

"Turn off the radio," I muttered grouchily. "Or change the station, or something. It's too early for a bass drum solo. And for the gods' sake, why are the curtains open?"

"Do you…have a…hangover?"

I turned to squint through the much-too-bright light at Hiccup, who was looking at me with a bizarre expression mixing concern, confusion, and caution. "If this is a hangover, I'm never drinking again."

"You drink?" Hiccup waved off my reply – which was just as well, because it would have been no comment. "Take your time waking up; Toothless snuck me to the bathroom earlier."

"What time is it?" If it was any earlier than ten, I was going back to sleep. Morning classes were cancelled after raid nights, because all the teachers were called out to help with cleanup, so there were no demands on my time.

"I don't know; that Deadly Nadder knocked my alarm clock off the nightstand when she teleported you back in."

Okay, forget sleep.

I hadn't yet gotten to the point where I was facing the events of last night, but that simple observation made it pretty clear that Stormfly (a Deadly Nadder? I hadn't really seen her) had been real.

"Stormfly…is she all right?"

"Is that her name?" Hiccup shrugged. "She seems to be. She rigged up a pocket-universe after she dropped you on me." He rubbed his shoulder and half-glared at me.

Don't look at me; I didn't tell her to drop me on you instead of on the bed.

I slowly dragged myself up to a sitting position. "Stormfly linked to Toothless."

Hiccup barked out a short, ironic – and too loud – laugh before noticing my expression and lowering his volume. "She certainly did; I noticed the earthquake in the dreamscape."

"She said something odd beforehand, though." I thought back carefully. "She said that he smelled…sort of like a Dream Alpha. How can you have a sort-of Dream Alpha? Isn't that an all-or-nothing deal?"

"Hmm…" Hiccup started thinking. Hard. I could practically see him sinking into himself, turning that information around in his head and perhaps discussing it with Toothless.

While he did that, I dragged myself off the bed and went to the bathroom.

A few minutes later, feeling more human after having used the facilities and washed up, I returned to catch Hiccup coming back to the surface.

"Well?"

Hiccup shook his head. "What Stormfly was smelling was her old Alpha's energy being pulled in by Toothless. All I did was change his name so that he couldn't teleport home; I didn't sever him from his Dream Alpha." He shrugged. "I didn't even know he had one."

I thought about that one – and what it meant. "So he's now pulling in double energy – enough for him and Stormfly?" At Hiccup's nod I went on to the pertinent question. "Is the Dream Alpha likely to notice that a double-portion of energy is going to some dragons that aren't returning?"

I don't know if I was hoping to surprise Hiccup or not, but I didn't succeed. He nodded again, soberly. "It won't happen immediately, but…yes, he'll eventually notice. Which is why we need more dragons in this refugee net."

"What?" More dragons? When he just said…

"Toothless showed me the dreamscape as it is now, with Stormfly included, and a picture of how it was without her; he helped me run the numbers, and our results show that a network of six dragons should be self-sustaining. Once we have that minimum of six, Toothless can sever from the Dream Alpha."

That made…sense…though I dearly wanted to call Hiccup out on that should.