"Do you smell that?" Santana questioned raising her head to inhale deeply, it smelt like ash and soot, and even from where she sat on Hiccup, she could feel an unnatural heat.

"I don't need to, look," Kara said, pointing to the massive dark plumes of smoke that were directly in front of them. She scowled, "If Charlie ended up freeing herself and burning down the forest, then I am going to be incredibly annoyed."

"You should be relieved."

"It would mean that this entire trip was an utter waste of my time, I should have figured Charlie would find some way to free herself, and burn the entire place down. She's probably in the middle of whatever they call a town square laughing covered in soot, ash and blood looking like some badass. She's going to mock me for taking so fucking long!"

Santana glanced at Kara for a moment, that was not something to be disappointed in. Charlie freeing herself and going on a murderous blood-soaked rampage wasn't exactly a good thing. It was certainly better than whatever the elves had planned to do to her, but she'd seen beastkin lose themselves to the blood lust and she didn't want the same for her mate. "Well I'm relieved that she's probably fine if she's attempting to burn down the entire forest. Concerned, but trees will grow back at some point."

"Well let's hope that she left some elves for me to bludgeon."

Santana rolled her eyes as she patted Hiccup on the head to get him to pick up speed, "I know that I'm new to the whole being a royal thing, but I was under the impression that the reason you hated elves had more to do with the people in charge, then the actual elven people."

"Elves are the worst, smug arrogant little pointy-eared freaks that think that they're better than everyone else. Sure there might be one or two like Mike, but they worship trees, Santana, how bright can they be? I mean especially if Charlie's managed to escape and burn down their citadel?"

"She's not dumb," Santana huffs in an annoyed tone.

"Yes. She is," Kara insists as she grips onto Hiccup as they start to climb up past the thick thicket of trees and bush. "She's still attempting to be the very best version of herself that she can be. And she's still dumb, you just don't see it."

Santana didn't respond to the clear provocation, it was becoming clear that Kara liked attempting to pick a fight, and Charlie was quite eager to smack Kara around. It was exhausting, Kara was exhausting, but as they made their way up the trees, methodically, she can't help but feel somewhat relieved. "Once this is over, you will give me some time with Charlie, and then you two can punch each other until you feel better."

Kara scoffed, as if she was going to let Santana have even a moment, this had been her idea and she was going to get her pound of flesh before Santanaz had a chance to break Charlie. "Or you could let me—" Kara trails off as they finally manage to get a good look at the Elven capital—or what was left of it. A piercing roar has her covering her ears as she spots a massive golden dragon rampaging throughout the city, its breath weapon being used to burn down trees. There was screaming, and the smell of burnt flesh hit her nose, burning away her nose hairs. "Well—fuck."

"Is that—" Santana's ears flatten on the top of her head, as the dragon lets out another roar before it literally squishes a screaming elf under foot and reaches down to rip it's head off. "Why is she glowing?" Santana asked, it was a dragon, which meant something could have possibly triggered Charlie's transformation, which didn't explain the glowing. "Do dragons glow?"

"No dragons don't normally glow. This is magic, and I doubt very much that the elves intentionally unleashed a being of pure magic into the world." Kara responded as she unhooked her warhammer

"Well what do we do?" Santana demands turning in her seat to see that Kara has opened a pouch that had been attached to her hip the entire trip and pulls out a few crystals, sorting through them by touch before finding the one that she was looking for a pale sky blue gem and she slams it into one of the sockets on her warhammer. "What are you doing?"

"A being of pure magical energy, you need to put it down. There is no reasoning with it, they are a force of nature and from the color, the eyes and the size, that's at best a young adolescent dragon—those crazy pointy eared freaks did the stupidest thing that you could possibly ever do the separated Charlie's dragon from her actual body. Thus the rampage, that thing has been trapped inside Charlie since she was a child."

Santana's eyes dart toward the weapon for a moment, "Put that thing away before I have Hiccup throw you off and I leave you here. We aren't destroying anything, I vaguely remember the shaman's stories about this."

"Beings of pure magic?"

"No—well not quite, I should have paid more attention but that's Charlie's dragon, there has to be a body somewhere, we just need to reunite them."

"There is no putting them back together again—"

"It's how it works in all the beastkin stories."

"That's not how cautionary tales work, it never works out—what type of nonsense do your shaman's teach?" Kara snapped at Santana.

"They taught us that in the beginning that humans and animal spirits co-existed and at some point magic went out of control and the delicate balance between human and spirits was disturbed. Arcane magic was killing the humans and it was being used against the spirits, so a pact was formed, and the pure magic of the spirits was transferred into a human host, bonding with their souls and creating our cores, stabilizing the bonding magic." Santana wrinkled her nose, she had clearly paid more attention to them than was generally necessary.

Kara frowned for a moment, "Charlie is part dragon, their magic works differently than spirit magic—and removing a core from a beastkin is an immediate death sentence—"

"As you said she's not a beastkin, but her dragon has always been sentient, and technically that dragon is my mate as well. It's the only reason that Charlie could even meet the conditions to be my mate."

"Except you can't sense her."

Santana scowled and immediately brought Hiccup to an abrupt stop. "You can get rid of her now," Santana said as she rubs Hiccup's neck. "Time to ditch the dead weight."

"What are you—" Kara is suddenly dropped from Hiccup's back as he rears up and uses his tail to rid himself of her, sending Kara crashing through the tree tops and towards the ground.

Santana glances down at the hole that was made in the foliage before looking at Hiccup who seemed utterly amused, "Time to go rescue my mate," she mumbled patting him gently. "Head towards the dragon," she orders, looking up at the glowing dragon. Hopefully Charlie's dragon would recognize her and she could convince it to return to Charlie's body.