~Ouroboros~

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1st - 7. Journey of Fate

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The strain on my mind was getting impossible to ignore. My flames were barely visible – having shrunk so much that I knew I had only a few seconds to go before they disappeared completely and my mind finally shut down.

Still, even a few seconds at the speed the memories were passing through me represented a few moon cycles of my life – a few cycles that I would fight claw and tooth to remember.

With newly strengthened will and renewed vigor I dove into what I knew to be the last few memories I would remember of my past life.

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My flight to the third stopping point on my journey took three sun cycles, and by the end I was truly glad that I had managed to stave off my wanderlust until the end of the winter, and had enough sanity left to at least eat before leaving – I highly doubted I would have made it otherwise. Even so, I had to push my body and mind close to their breaking point to succeed, with only the constant strengthening of my body keeping me in the air.

I remember arriving to the next island in the middle of the night and collapsing barely past the treeline on the shore into a deep sleep.

I awoke to the beautiful sight of a deep red sunset. I did not know how many sun cycles have passed while I was resting from my grueling flight and from countless sun cycles with barely a moment of sleep due to the wanderlust before then, but from the near exhaustion I felt from my body it was likely at least two. It was quite fortunate that no one around tried to eat me while I was out – I would have awoken and taken care of that, but waking up to blinding pain and realizing that someone was taking a bite out of you is quite far down my list of 'best sights to wake up to'.

Being eaten in general is quite far down my list of things to try during my lifetime.

Speaking of eating…

I was suddenly aware of the sharp pangs of hunger emanating from my body. It was then that I realised that if I did not eat something before going to sleep again, I was quite unlikely to wake back up.

Attempting to stand up resulted in failure as I realized that it had likely been at least five sun cycles since I have last eaten – my body was simply too weak to move. I was in a bad situation and I knew it – but it was not unsalvageable.

Bracing myself for the pain I knew was to come I manipulated some of the muscles and other tissues within my body to break down even further to provide the energy required, and strengthened the rest of my body enough to allow it to move as if it was at its peak condition. The expected pain came and went as my body literally ate itself before being replaced by a dull throbbing, but I was used to this, having done so several times during my first winter as well as three times during my most recent journey just to name a few.

From the amount of fat, muscle, and other tissue that I allowed to be broken down into nourishment for the rest of my body I knew that I had at most half a sun cycle before my body was back to the same condition it was before I did anything – worse than that really, as it would have decreased muscle mass from my meddling to go along with the near zero levels of energy. Throughout my flight here I had quite literally ate my way through almost a fifth of my entire body weight, and was precariously close to a point of no return where not even an elder's mind would be of help – to speak nothing of my own.

Thus I only had half a sun cycle to catch some food – and fortunately for me, night had already arrived and I was ready to go hunting.

The first fly-by of the island I was on resulted in my discovery of a human settlement on one of the islets bordering the main island. I had arrived at almost the complete opposite shore to it and thus not noticed it when I had first approached the island.

Deciding not to antagonize the inhabitants I turned around and flew back – I was not sure how they would take me fishing in the waters close to their village, and it was just polite to meet with them before doing anything like that. Considering what I knew of humans I thought our meeting would start off on the wrong paw if I showed up in the middle of the night when they were asleep – better off to hunt far away from them for the first few days and observe them before initiating contact.

My mother would be proud of me for remembering proper etiquette and following it even when I was nearly dying from hunger. I clamped down on my thoughts – it still hurt to think about them, even two Cycles after they had left…

Fortunately for me the waters surrounding the stretch of beach I landed on were plentiful in cod and I was able to catch enough to more than satisfy my hunger. The sun was just coming out of the waters when I flamed the ground in one of the clearings within the forest and fell asleep with a satisfyingly bloated stomach. Sleep was always easy to come by after a hearty meal and a comfortably warm recently flamed ground to lie on – especially in situations when the body needed to heal.

The next three moon cycles passed much the same way as I restored my body back to its peak condition – staving off wanderlust for as long as I did, combined with the grueling journey once I gave into it had eaten away at my muscles until all my bones stood out with enough clarity that I could literally count them in my reflection as I flew over the waters surrounding this island.

I had also relocated myself to a new home – a decently sized cove with a small lake (or perhaps a large pool would be a better description) taking up half of its area. It was surrounded by steep rocky sides and remarkably only one entrance – the narrow gap that must have been eroded away by the river flowing out of the lake and into the ocean. The gap was too narrow for me to get through it, and the sides far too steep for me to climb – but that also meant that any trespassers that tried to get to me would find it difficult.

I on the other paw, had the entire sky as my entrance and exit to and from the cove.

Truly there was no being better than a dragon – after all we were the peak predators of both land and sky, and were not too shabby at grabbing a bite to eat from the waters as well.

As for sleep – well, I found myself a deep indent in one of the cliffs that formed a somewhat shallow cave, especially with the way thick roots fell down from one of the trees below. I would have enlarged it and reinforced it with molten rock if I could, but was nowhere near capable of that and had to simply be satisfied with what I got.

All in all, I was starting to like this island much more than the last one - the shallow cave and the peaceful cove on this island were much better compared to the cave I used on the last island; and there was still that village of humans I had yet to meet to provide company.

If everything else went just as well as this past moon cycle had – I might even feel sad to leave this place. Somehow the tranquil peace of it had grown on me.

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The flame of my mind was almost invisible, having lost just about all of its power. Realistically, I should have long since fallen into unconsciousness, but if I did, then I would lose any memories I had not yet seen. By now I was only holding on with my will alone, trying to scrape out even a fraction of a second more. It felt like I was attempting to fly through solid rock – completely impossible of course – and yet I did – for no matter the difficulties encountered, these were my memories I was struggling for.

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It was roughly two moon cycles after my arrival that I chanced upon a strange scene.

The night before I was extremely lucky during my fishing trips and collected enough fish such that I did not have to go hunting this night. That did not mean that I was not in the sky – for flying is something that I love with all my heart and take great joy in – be it during fishing, hunting, or when flying for no other reason than to just to feel my wings pierce the air.

As it was, I was executing a nearly uncontrollable spinning dive with one of my wings firmly held against my chest while the other one was fully open when I heard angry human cries along with wordless roars of other dragons, frequently accentuated by fiery explosions coming from the village below. I was just as surprised by the sounds as I was to find that I was in fact almost directly over the village – I had lost track of my location due to the euphoria that had consumed me after the fourth steep dive.

I instinctively opened up my wings and slowed down to a steady glide to prevent me from crashing into one of those flaming towers below as I wondered what was going on. Nothing I had been taught or seen in my life had prepared me for the utter chaos I was now experiencing. Perhaps it was due to the insatiable curiosity that remained of my hatchling Cycles, or perhaps it was because I have never truly been in a fight for my life, but I could not stop myself from coming closer to better experience whatever was going on.

Hiding in the shadows I landed on one of the highest of those wooden nests the humans built and observed everything that was happening while remaining unnoticed by the participants down below.

To me it even looked fun – what with the yelling and setting things on fire. In a way it reminded me of those 'celebrations' that my mother told me about that some dragon tribes and even some humans participate in, to speak nothing of my own games as a hatchling when I used my then horribly aimed and pitifully weak fireballs to blast at my mother in an attempt to mark her as she slowly dodged around. I had always wanted back then to have other hatchlings to play with and felt a pang of sadness at being the only hatchling on the island – just another part of being an OiraRae.

I wasn't a hatchling any longer, but perhaps this once I could join in – some of the dragons around were definitely fully grown so I knew it wasn't a hatchling only affair.

Reaching a decision I fired one of my unique blue plasma bolts at the base of one of the giant flaming bowl-on-a-pole creations and watched it collapse. I had seen some of the other dragons attacking them, so obviously they were there for that reason.

The reaction was just about as good as I expected it. There was yelling, there were cries, and most importantly there was a giant flaming bowl rolling halfway through the village. If it was a contest of who got the most things on fire, then I was most definitely in the lead.

There was a yell from one of the humans close to the nest I was sitting on and something heavy crashed into one of the wooden extrusions along the top of the nest, completely smashing it to pieces. I roared down at them to be careful, and a second object destroyed another wooden plank.

I felt a sliver of worry as I wondered if I misunderstood something – perhaps I should have asked before joining in, but I didn't want to stop everything just to ask questions. Still, they should know better than to throw something capable of splintering a wooden plank almost as thick as a medium sized tree! With the still growing skills I had, a hit like that could very well cripple me!

By the time the third and fourth object flew at me, I had already taken off into the night to circle above the village to look for a dragon that I could talk to – preferably one that did not seem too caught up in the festivities.

It was during my low glide over the village that I spotted something I had not seen from my perch on the human nest – something that completely removed any thoughts of this being a weird celebration, while simultaneously freezing me inside.

There were dragon bodies lying around the village.

And by dragon bodies I meant DEAD dragon bodies – usually with copious amounts of blood or giant gashes in and around their bodies.

I felt panic settle in as I heard a scream from below – not the angry or focused one as I had heard before, but one that reflected sheer pain and terror of the one releasing it. With a sharp turn I was able to get a glimpse of what was going on and almost wished I hadn't.

It was the most horrifying thing I had ever experienced, and I knew that just like everything else it would be forever engraved in my memory. Down below I could see one of the RunaEfai spitting its liquid fire at a group of humans who were blocking it with pieces of wood as they attempted to get out of the way. At either side of the RunaEfai a MaegNur stood with their tail quills out.

I let out a sorrowful croon filled with its own share of horror as I realised that the human that had made the scream that drew me to this scene was skewered on the quills of one of the MaegNur – hanging limp on six quills that were jutting out perpendicular to her tail which was held still in the air. As I watched the MaegNur slammed her tail at the wall next to her and released those quills – leaving the hopefully dead human nailed to the wall.

Hoping for someone's death – the death of an actual soul carrier… In any other situation I would have been horrified at my thoughts, and perhaps I was at that, but with everything else happening around me that feeling was lost much like a single drop of water in an ocean.

Another scream drew my attention and I was unable to look away as I watched one of the humans stumble down and be covered in the liquid flames of the RunaEfai. It wasn't until the poor soul finished screaming and I heard a painful draconic roar that I managed to tear my eyes from the still burning remains of the human.

I had by that point felt that nothing could shock me – the horror had long since turned my body numb in stunned disbelief – but I was wrong. My eyes widened as I realised that the human had managed to slam the heavy object (hammer, my mind provided from the memories of my mother's lessons) into the RunaEfai's wings and shattered them – she would not fly again.

And then, along with yet another painful roar, I heard a thought.

::Free… ::

The thought pierced the air and I was started to realize that this was the first thought that I heard from all the dragons here – somehow with everything going on around me I never noticed the complete mental silence – the complete lack of thoughts within the sea of souls.

I had to respond; perhaps the RunaEfai that was currently retreating from the human could tell me what was going on.

::Hello? – Can you hear me?::

For the first time in three Cycles I was attempting to talk to another being – and this time it was towards someone who was not my mother or sire. It was of little wonder that my thought came out weak. I had by that point almost stopped thinking in draconic, preferring human dialects after my parents left. Still, she had obviously heard me, since her head swirled away from the human to lock her eyes with mine, spotting me within the slowly brightening skies above.

::An OiraRae! Barely a youngling as well by the looks of it! What are you doing here? – No, it does not matter – please, you must flee from here before-::

I flinched as her thought was cut off abruptly – the human had taken advantage of her lack of attention and slammed his hammer directly into her head with such force that it completely caved in her skull.

::fly youngling, get away before it's too late…:: Her last thoughts pierced through the air towards me before her mind followed her body into death.

Oh goddesses please tell me what was going on!

It was quite pointless to try and speak with the humans – their minds were like shards of ice, sealed off from anyone else, and preventing us from communicating – resulting in any 'conversations' being more along the lines of gestures unless the village elder was capable enough to be able to pick up on mind-speak – at least that was what my sire taught me of human-dragon interactions. Besides which, they seemed more interested in killing dragons than talking!

Instead I thought it would be more beneficial to ask one of the other dragons about the situation instead.

There simply had to be a reasonable explanation for all of this…

Slaughter – death – killing… Souls dropping down into the abyss and shedding the remains of the minds they held up like falling stars within the river of souls, human and dragon alike…

Somehow I doubted I would understand the reason even if I was told it – to my young mind there was absolutely nothing that could make what I had seen acceptable.

By this point the sun was slowly starting to poke through the waters and almost as if on command the dragons lifted off – grabbing whatever food they could – and started to fly away from the village.

Enhancing my wings I shot towards the leading dragons and yelled out at them, letting off a roar to punctuate my mental message.

::What is going on!::

There was no answer to my thought – and I made sure to broadcast it with enough strength that the entire flight pack of dragons around me must have heard me.

They just did not reply…

::Will someone just answer me!?::

::Hello-o could you at least twitch a wing or something so I know that you could hear me?::

::Hello…::

Their responses to me were the same as before – absolute silence.

Perhaps if I just followed them to their nest then their clan's oldest elder – the CoiraRei of the clan would deign to answer my questions. After all, they couldn't just ignore me forever!

I was so angry at the surrounding dragons that I actually managed to fly several moments within the fog that had suddenly surrounded us all before I even noticed the sharp decrease in visibility. I flew closer to the other dragons so as not to lose them – and considering that they had dropped down to almost a foot's distance to the water and started swerving around the rock stacks, it took all of my concentration to maneuver.

How in the name of the goddesses did the other dragons maneuver in this fog? Even for me this was extremely difficult, and I was a natural born flyer!

By the abyss, how did they even know where they were flying!?

A sense of foreboding was gnawing at me – there was just a sense of wrongness in the air…

And then the fog cleared and I noticed a desolate fire mountain sticking out of the waters. The other dragons were flying into the various gargantuan caves that littered the rocky mountain sides.

We had arrived – and the sense of foreboding climbed to the 'get out of there now!' levels.

I flew into the caves.

Heck, I was a young, strong, male dragon in the prime of his life! – There was nothing I feared!

Besides which – I was still the best flyer out of all the dragons here; if I was ever in danger I could always just flee.

AFTER I saw what was in there…

Youthful ignorance at its finest, I only now realized as I relived this again.

The caves all connected to the central chamber big enough to house the entire human village I had just left. It stretched upwards, cumulating in a giant rim at the top of the mountain – wide enough to allow several dragons to fly wing to wing through it. Looking down I saw a strange red fog that covered the entire base of the chamber.

Curiousness overcame me and I reached out with my mind down into the depths of that fog – or more appropriately – the presence I felt down there. Judging from the feeling of power – so much so that I could even feel it within the real world – the CoiraRei was likely to be there.

Perhaps he would answer some of my questions…

My cautious probe downwards was suddenly grabbed by something and by reflex I pulled back; or at least tried to.

With dawning horror I realized that the tendril of thought I sent out was caught – and what was worse, something was reaching out towards my mind along it.

Attempting to cut the connection did not work.

What in the name of the twin goddesses is going on!?

By instinct I angled myself to fly away through the rim of the mountain – I simply had to get away from here!

By now I was completely freaked out – nothing could have prepared me for any of this…

In my mind I was concentrating on the probe and spotted a kind of gooey dark fog slither along it towards me.

A disease… A tumor…

Whatever it was, I knew it was unnatural – the nauseating feeling it was releasing now that it had me in its grasp would have sent me on a blind flight as fast and as far away from it as I could go…

If only the vile thing would just release its hold!

I redoubled my efforts to cut the connection while at the same time pumping my wings with all their strength. Whatever that thing was, I knew that BAD would not be nearly enough to describe my situation if it caught me. Even though my mind and soul were caught in an unbreakable hold by whatever that darkness was, I tried to at least put some physical distance between it and my body.

No one had ever told me of anything like that within the sea of souls!

All of my attempts were futile, for only moments later the dark revolting substance surrounded the flame of my mind and started to corrode its way in. My wings seized up and I saw my body glide down to land on one of the rock shelves along the chamber's side.

Oh goddess of the night take me, I could no longer control my body!

:: WELCOME YOUNG ONE – CONGRATULATIONS ON FINDING US. ::

:: YOU ARE NOW OURS… ::

The thoughts reverberated inside my mind, their very tones sounding like two people speaking at the same time; but even that strangeness was dwarfed by the near tangent taint that made the very world around me feel corrupted. I had come here to have someone respond to me, and now I had gotten my wish granted. Oh the RunaEfai was right – I should have fled from the village when I had first seen the fighting – flew away from here, away from that island!

I should have never followed the dragons here!

Goddess of the night – why! Why me!

:: Oh goddesses – what have I done to deserve this!? :: I yelled out with my last strength before the soothing/horrifying voice/thought crashed over me again.

:: NOW NOW HATCHLING – DON'T YOU WORRY – DEATH IS NOT GOING TO BE YOUR FATE ::

:: AFTER ALL, YOU WILL BE QUITE USEFUL TO US… ::

The response coming from the repulsive darkness surrounding me did nothing to quell my fears, and the duality of the voice only propelled me further into terror.

The fog around my mind suddenly pushed itself inwards, overpowering my mind and pushing tendrils of itself directly into my flame with all the grace of dull claws tearing away at the soft membranes of my wings.

I screamed wordlessly as the sheer pain inflicted upon my very mind overcame my capacity to think.

The pain – both the one I was feeling as I relived the moment, and the ethereal one I felt as I remembered it – was too much for me as the last dregs of my willpower fled from me and the remaining portion of my memories that I had not yet watched began unraveling and breaking away.

With my mind effectively shutting down and going into a deep sleep to replenish itself I had just enough time for a last bit of memory – but I did not recognise it as such, for within it there was nothing but darkness.

I did not even notice as the foul darkness of memory faded away into the true darkness of sleep – for there was precious little to distinguish between them; nor did I notice that the end of my memories caused my body to involuntarily spasm in the physical world, breaking open some of the wounds upon it and causing them to bleed.

Safe in the embrace of the dark and soothing wings of the goddess of the night, I knew no more.

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Although Vikings had their own names for each species of dragon, it would be foolish to believe that the names were the same as those the dragons used themselves, after all without any way for the dragons to communicate with the Vikings, not to mention that all the dragons that the Vikings encountered were incapable of communicating even with each other – let alone the humans. Thus there was simply no way for the Vikings to pick up on the names the dragons used.

So it came to be that when the Vikings first encountered the dragons they came up with their own names for them. The RunaEfai, AngaEcor, AiRei, AttaEcor, and MaegNur; or flame-spirits, stone-hearts, little-ones, twin-hearts, and sharp-shooters as they could be called in human languages if the meaning of their names were directly translated and slightly shortened; were given Viking designations of Monstrous Nightmares, Gronckles, Terrible Terrors, Hideous Zipplebacks, and Deadly Nadders that made up the set of five common dragon types.

When during one of the dragon raids the Vikings saw a blue bolt of flame slam into one of the torches, completely incinerating the base and causing the chalice of fire to roll down half the village and into one of the houses; they knew that whatever did that was not a type of dragon their village has ever seen before.

It was Gobber who saw the dark shadow on the main hall from where the blue flame originated, and it was he who attempted to bring down what was obviously a rare dragon – both from the distinctively dark coating of its hide and the uniquely blue fireball it had shot. When after the first two throws yielded no results the dragon spread its midnight black wings and flew off into the sky to blend with it – disappearing as if it was never there in the first place, Gobber had only one thing on his mind.

"Night's Fury" Those standing around him heard him utter, and the term stuck.

Many hoped that the shade of the sky, aptly named the Nightfury, would not appear during one of the following dragon raids; but it was not to be. Ever since then a shadow dragon that flew too fast to be seen and blended in perfectly with the night sky was part of the dragon raids. It never attempted to steal any food and never showed itself to the Vikings.

Although the Vikings would vehemently deny it, their primal fear of the demon and its fireballs which were so different and more powerful than that of other dragons was clearly seen in their descriptions of it.

The demon summoned to earth and tasked only with bringing more Vikings into the embrace of Hel.

The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself.

The terror hidden within the darkness of a new moon.

The Nightfury.

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A/N

And that takes care of both Hiccup's and Toothless' backstories. Next chapter continues off where 1st – 4 left off, featuring the aftereffects of the dragon Raid.

For those wondering, I have a very 'unique' version of Red Death that I do not believe I have seen in any other fanfic (it needs to be to fit into the story). I will leave it to you to draw conclusions about it once it starts featuring more predominantly in the story.

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Saienai (signing off).