The big man filled a second tankard for himself and started walking back in the direction of Toothless with Hiccup. "I was a bit worried about how you would perform that with a dragon, but she certainly solved that problem for you, My Prince."

"Yes," he replied, smiling. "She's always surprising me like that."

"I'm sure," they dodged a pair of chattering ladies "that some surprises are more pleasant than others." He flicked his free hand and made a few more guests intercept their route to the princess. "Today's must have been quite the treat."

"Yes, but," he dodged one of his brothers talking to a general, "I don't think it changed anything."

"What do you mean?" Thanatos asked. How on earth could the boy say that? Was he blind to her beauty?

Hiccup stopped walking and faced the man head on. "Well, I loved her before she showed me that she could be human. Now I know that we can have a family together, and that does make me happy, but I still think I would have loved her."

Great gronkles, what was the boy made of? He wouldn't convince him this way. Thanatos switched tactics. "But are you sure she feels that way? I mean, People who can change like that…"

The prince turned away and started walking again. "Whatever the legends might be, I'm sure that Toothless means no harm to those inside the palace. If she was going to hurt any of us, she would have done it already."

He jumped to her defense. Good. "Oh no, My Prince, it's about their abilities, not their behavior."

Hiccup turned to face the man again. He did want to know more about Toothless, and the more he knew the less she would need to tell him. It obviously made her uncomfortable. "What do you mean?"

"Well," began the man, "In all the legends, these skin changers only had two forms, usually a human and dragon form. But if they chose to take a third form, usually smaller than the other two…well the constant changes in body size would eventually kill them. And I did notice that the dragon Toothless is much smaller than the human Toothless, so I just wondered." He sighed. "But perhaps I'm overthinking this." Hiccup ran back to Toothless and the man smiled.

He reached Toothless quickly and almost shoved the cup into her hands. "I'll be right back. I need to…ah…check on the kitchens." And he ran out of the ballroom leaving a dazed Toothless behind clutching a tankard.

He ran through the corridors and up the stairs. His mind was spinning. Toothless had three forms, the black dragon form, her human form, and the green dragon form. If there was any chance that what Thanatos had said was true, then every time Toothless changed into that green skin, she was hurting herself. He had to get rid of it before she did herself serious injury with the thing.

He tore open the door to their room and ran for the changing screen with the green skin draped over the top, just where she'd left it. He grabbed one of the paws and pulled the thing off the top of the screen. It was so small in his hands. How long had Toothless been squeezing herself into this, probably cramping her body in an effort to fit into it? Well, she wouldn't have to for much longer.

Hiccup took the fire poker and stirred up the coals in the fireplace. "Come on, come on." He urged the coals back to a ruddy red with his breath. He glanced over at the door to make sure no one was coming and put a fresh log on the hot coals. Then he waited for the flames to start growing, hoping, wringing out the edge of his dress tunic. As soon as the log started to darken, he took the skin and threw it into the flames. He had a moment of relief before something odd happened. The room started to smell.

It was the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh. Hiccup almost gagged and ran to open the windows and flood the smell out of the room. That was a bad idea. The wind carried the smell to the ball room where Toothless got just a whiff of it.

No. He couldn't have.

She abandoned the trio of women trying to maintain her attention and ran for the door in much the same fashion Hiccup had earlier. The smell got stronger as she neared their rooms and her heart fell with it. There was only one thing that smelled like that, like fire and burning flesh and a sharp tinge of magic.

She crashed through the doors, ran past Hiccup, frantically fanning the smell out the windows, and collapsed in front of the fireplace. She grabbed the poker and tried to get the skin off the flames, but every time she hooked it, that spot crumbled to ash. Throwing away the fire implements, she reached in with her bare hands and grabbed the skin, burning herself. She yelped from the pain and Hiccup ran back to her from the windows.

He grabbed her hands and inspected them. "What were you thinking?"

"What were you thinking?" she yelled into his face. "Why did you burn that?" Was it because he no longer loved her in any other form? Was lust only now consuming him?

"I thought it was hurting you."

Okay, that was not the answer she expected. "Why did you think that?"

"One of the guests told me that smaller forms hurt you because you have to shrink to fit inside them." He gulped. "I thought I was helping."

"Who told you this?" He hesitated. "Tell me!"

"His name was Thanatos. I just met him tonight. But he seemed to know a lot about you, so I-"

"Thanatos?" she interrupted. "Thanatos the Scarlet?"

"Yes, that was his name. He told me that skinchangers-"

She grabbed him by the shoulders. "Hiccup, that was the Red Death! I've been hiding from him for over a year!"

"What? Why?" He mirrored her actions, gripping her.

She sighed inwardly. This was not how she pictured telling him the truth. "I'm a skinchanger, someone who takes on different forms by wrapping themselves in the hide of an animal. Usually, we have two forms, the human form we're born in and our dragon form. Don't ask me how we get that skin, my dad didn't teach me that yet."

The Red Death is one of us, but greedy. He stole me from my father for my beauty and kept me enslaved. I tried to leave, but he had me in chain magic. It acts like a chain tied to a post. You can't get a certain distance away from the caster, no matter how hard you try. And if they move, the boundaries move with them and the chain magic tugs you in that direction. But I found out that the spell had a time limit."

My father contacted me from the outside using a bat skin and I told him about the spell's limits. The next day, he smuggled in the green skin with a letter, saying that if I wore the skin, I could get away from the Red Death and wait for the spell to expire. It expired tomorrow."

"So it's fine," Hiccup tried to reassure. "You didn't need the skin anyway."

"No. If he's here in the castle, the boundaries from the spell are already on me. And with the skin gone, I can't escape again." She looked up at him, tears beginning to fall. "I'll have to leave with him."

But instead of despairing, Hiccup's face grew hard. "Then tell me how to beat him. I'm not going to let him take you."

Those words gave Toothless courage. "My father will know how to help. He lives to the north of here, near an inlet on the coast. Just look for the huge white dragon. Ah!" Something forced her back. "It's the boundaries, they're pulling at me!"

"No! You can't go!" But despite his protests, she yanked out her night fury skin, stripped off the dress and quickly replaced it with the skin.

She opened the window. "I'm sorry, I don't have a choice." She finished the transformation and flew through the window to where Thanatos the Scarlet, as he liked to call him human form, waited for the prettiest of all his captives.

When Mark came into the room to bring him and Toothless back to the ball, he saw Hiccup standing hunched over, Toothless' dress in his arms. "Where's Toothless?" asked their friend.

"Gone," breathed the prince. "And it's my fault."

Kudos to those who guessed about Thanatos last chapter! He is the Big Bad in this story. Because of him, the rating on this story might go up due to some hints of lust and such, but absolutely nothing graphic, just innuendo, really.

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