Hiccup and Toothless landed on an empty beach close but out of sight of the city. Spotting a nice cave nearby they set up camp just as the sun started to peek over the horizon. Hiccup intended to sneak into the city the next night as he was in desperate need of new clothes and supplies. His clothes were ragged and covered in scorch marks from his time training and his hair was long and wild. He had grown a bit too and had to steal from the occasional settlements they encountered to replace his ill-fitting garments as well as any other material that he needed, including enough supplies to make a basic riding mask. The journal he brought with him was almost full, filled with images of the dragons and moves he had learned about during their travels. Toothless was just as eager to get a rest from the non-stop flying but was concerned about his brother going into unfamiliar territory where he couldn't follow. But what neither of them realized, was that a lone figure had spotted them land in the early morning light, watching from the palace balcony as they landed in the distance, her perfectly symmetrical black hair blowing in the wind.

Azula made her way down to the beach a few hours later, an escort of a few guards trailing behind, but ordered to stay off the beach. If her eyes hadn't deceived her, she wanted this honor all to herself, the guards would only be necessary to carry back the corpse. Footprints led into a cave, smaller than the size she knew dragons to be, but the shape was correct. It was probably a juvenile, but that was acceptable. Less of a fight, an easier victory, and she would still get the glory.

The sight that greeted her inside the cave though was not what she had anticipated. She could confirm it was a dragon but certainly not the kind she heard about; it wasn't long and serpentine but more feline in body shape and its wings were larger. But even stranger than its anatomy was the saddle strapped to its back with a boy leaning against it. Reddish-brown hair, tangled and wild, hung down into his face and over his eyes. His clothes were burnt and torn up and overall he looked like a feral savage. She supposed she would have to kill him too. No loss though, just some barbarian. Rotating her arms and two fingers pointed out she began charging her lightning, blue plasma streaks illuminating the cave as the crackling echoed off the walls. The dragon shot up at the sound, knocking the boy to the ground, waking him up in the process.

Hiccup woke up abruptly at Toothless's disturbance as he was knocked to the ground, and not a moment too soon. At the cave entrance, he saw the silhouette of a person, their arms cutting through the air with a crackling line of lightning following behind them. Wait, LIGHTNING! He shot up, eyes wide as the figure pointed two fingers at him and lightning arced forward. Throwing himself in front of Toothless, he put up both hands drawing the bolt to them. From the light of the flash, Hiccup could make out more of the figure in front of him. It was a girl, significantly shorter than himself, wearing ornate clothing in shades of reds, golds, and blacks. Hiccup froze for a second, hesitating on what to do with the lightning that now arced between his palms. The girl's eyes widened, in fear, shock, both, or more emotions he couldn't discern, but he wanted to know how she had produced the lightning. There was no storm to draw from and it wasn't too powerful compared to the torrents the skrill had sent at him, but he had never met another human who could do anything resembling what he could. Decision made, he thrust out his hand blasting the lightning into the ground where it dissipated into the dirt. Once the lightning was gone her eyes hardened, and to both his excitement and surprise, blue fire flickered to life as she sent two fireballs sailing towards him from her outstretched fingers. Hiccup ducked and threw a sweeping kick and a wave of fire and the girl threw herself to the ground, landing on her hands before springing back up into a fighting position.

In a heavily accented voice, she yelled out of the cave as a few more volleys of flames, her blue, Hiccup's orange, and Toothless's purple, were exchanged before five armored men ran into the cave. Their armor was the same color as the girl's but lacking the gold accents and included a face-covering helmet. They all took up a rigid stance around her creating a battle line and proceeded to throw fireballs producing punches. Both dragon and rider did their best to dodge the onslaught, but the sheer amount of projectiles soon overwhelmed them. Blasted back into the wall of the cave and cornered, the soldiers slowly approached.

"Knock them out, I want them alive." He could barely understand the girl's voice through her accent, and right as he processed what she said, a boot met the side of his head knocking him out cold.

The world was spinning as he reentered the land of consciousness. He jolted up only to find his hands chained. He looked around as he shook the last threads of sleep from his heal, he was in a metal cell, some kind of jail. And standing outside of that cell was that woman. She watched him silently, standing tall with hands clasped behind her back. She had an indisputable air of authority to her, and if the men with her were soldiers as he suspected, then she could be some kind of royalty. "Who are you?" Hiccup's voice was hoarse, crackling from disuse over the past few months, having mostly communicated with his dragon companions with growls and barks.

"I don't think you're in much of a position to ask questions here, Hikroh." At his confused expression, at both the accent and name she smirked, "Yes, we found your journal. We're not illiterate, we could read your signature. Though you may very well be, based on that gibberish you have written and the way you talk."

"How did you produce lightning?" Hiccup asked, a bit shell shocked at what she had just said but still caught up on what she had done in the cave. "And your fire, how was it blue? I've never met anyone else that could control fire like that!"

"Don't play stupid. You've obviously been well trained in firebending. Most of the best masters are part of the army, but there are a few who aren't. Who trained you? I've heard of one, Jeong Jeong, who deserted the army. But you did redirect lightning, so was it Iroh? He's been out for a few years now."

"I don't know who they are, sorry." He slumped against the bars as what she had said sunk in. There were more people like him, firebenders as she called them, and it was common enough here that she had a military made up of people who could do it. And there were masters, human masters, not like the dragons who taught him, that taught others. But he was in a cell, disadvantaged, he saw nothing he could gain from lying. "You called it fire bending, sorry, I've never met anyone else who could. The dragons trained me... WAIT TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup surged forward against the chains, "WHERE'S TOOTHLESS?! WHERE'S MY DRAGON!"

Azula was curious, very curious. The boy had a strange accent, harsh and guttural. And his bending style was odd, not the rigid well formed military style, but also unlike her own style, much less precise but still elegant in its own way, and far wilder. She was good at getting information out of people, and as such knew when they were lying. He didn't seem to be and the concern in his voice was genuine. He was a powerful bender, so she filed this act of weakness away for later reference.

"The dragon is fine. We noticed the saddle, how did you manage such a feat? And what did you call it, Toothless was it? Not a very fitting name. Are you blind as well as illiterate?"

"Please, just take me to Toothless, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

"Fine then, guards, take him to the dragon." The girl waved her hand dismissively as guards came into the cell and hauled him up by his elbows. As he stood, he realized that even though they were full-grown men he was about as tall as them, even taller than many. Odd, back home he was the shortest one around. But couldn't focus on that, the only important thing now was getting to Toothless. He was in a foreign city, in jail, they had his dragon, they could firebend, and some sort of royalty was interrogating him?

Once he was deposited into a new cell, he looked up to see Toothless in chains. Scrambling to his best friend he started whispering into his ear flaps as the dragon let out a croon of relief at their reunion.

"So, about your earlier offer. Where are you from, Hikroh?'' He had nearly forgotten he was being interrogated for a second, but he held to his word and answered the question.

"I'm from Berk."

"Berk," she rolled her eyes, "you know now is not the time to be making things up, Hikroh."

"I'm not making anything up, it's an island to the far north," he decided to skip on his usual sarcastic remarks about the place, "it's one of many in an archipelago. And why are you calling me Hikroh?"

"Hm, an archipelago, I'll have someone check our maps later. And we're calling you that because that was the name on every one of the pages in that book. The only legible thing in there. Is that not your journal?"

Hiccup stood stock still, voice barely above a whisper, "You can read that...?"

"Of course we can, your calligraphy is a bit sloppy though -"

"I CAN'T EVEN READ THAT!" His excited shouts cut her off. "I've gone my whole life never knowing what that meant. I've just been signing with that ever since I could write! That's your language?"

He too was cut off, "If you didn't know it was a language, why do you know it and what were you writing in?"

His earlier anxiety was morphing into geeky enthusiasm as he paced the cell with his arms flailing in near-exaggerated gestures. "I was writing in Norse. We have the same spoken language more or less, but our cultures have had no contact for generations, so the written languages probably split. But how did... WAIT! I think my mother taught me that. She died when I was young, but I heard she was an outsider..." His enthusiasm began to drain away at the mention of his mother, obviously a sore subject, Azula noted.

Azula continued to watch him with steely eyes and poised posture, but a hint of mirth made its way onto her features if one looked close enough. "So, let me get this straight. You're from an uncharted chain of islands somewhere to the north, your mother was from the fire nation, and your dragon taught you firebending?"

"Thank you for summing that up," Hiccup responded dryly.

"Well, I guess that settles this matter. Good day-"

"WAIT! Can we go?" Hiccup asked, "We didn't break any laws, at least to our knowledge. We can leave the city, you'll never see us again if you want."

Azula thought for a second. This boy, Hikroh as his journals noted, was a powerful firebender. He also knew at least one rare technique that as far as she knew only her uncle invented. And due to his lack of any other knowledge of bending she presumed he didn't know of any history or of the war. Quite frankly he was feral, and his naivete made him a blank slate. Combine that with his knowledge of apparently training dragons, she didn't need to ask about that as it was quite obvious, he could prove to be very useful.

"Fine. Guards release him, and I trust the dragon is docile," he nodded vigorously, "and the dragon, but keep an eye on them." She turned back to them, "Don't leave the city. Guards take him to get him cleaned up, we can't have him walking around in this state." And with that, she left.

As she left the cell ward, she turned to another guard. "Tell my father what happened, and I want documentation of anyone who has left the fire nation within the last thirty years, specifically women. I want to know who this boy is."

Hiccup was unshackled, and after much convincing and Toothless giving his best puppy dog eyes, was also allowed to follow unchained. Hiccup knew that dragons could be irresistibly cute one second and savagely terrifying the next, but was more than willing to leverage the former. But Hiccup still needed some answers.

"So, you guys. Where exactly am I and who was that?" He got some odd looks for that one.

"You're in the fire nation capital. Hard to believe you don't know that." the guard chuckled, "and that was Princess Azula. Second Born child of fire lord Ozai." Hiccup guessed that the 'fire lord' was some sort of king, just fitting with the theme of this place. Everything was about fire, the clothes, the insignia, the name of the place. I mean, what else was there?

"Funny how everything revolves around her. What else is there, an earth tribe? At war with the water kingdom?" He didn't expect his sarcasm to get a serious response, just the classic annoyed dismissal he always got from Stoick and the tribe.

"Well, kind of, there are the water tribes and the earth kingdom, who we are at war with," Hiccup's mouth fell to the floor at that eliciting yet more laughs from the guards. "You obviously were pretty cut off where you're from."

The guards he was stationed with turned out to be pretty amicable people. They showed him a map and to Hiccup's shock and amusement, there were indeed water tribes on the poles and an earth kingdom to the east. He couldn't read any of the labels though, so was left in the dark about the four points marked with white. They took him to a barber for a definitely long overdue haircut, washing, trimming, and pulling it up in some kind of knot. He was also given some new clothes, dark red pants, and a lighter red sleeveless tunic with black trimmings. It was fairly simple but nice. He was fine showing his arms, everyone around here seemed small, like him, and he had developed some muscle due to months of dragon-riding and physical training. Seeing himself in a mirror, a piece of glass that reflected things (what a novel invention) he had to say he looked pretty good. I was also pretty warm here, which was nice compared to Berk's arctic climate. The shoes were odd though, made of a flat base held to the foot with straps and exposed the toes, definitely not the boots he was used to. He would have to see about getting a new pair.

Azula got her reports pretty quickly, no one wanted to make her mad after all. One of the many perks of being feared. The most interesting report was the missing person report, The most telling of which was a woman named Mahka, who apparently went missing after a failed expedition north, and was supposedly a skilled fire bender. And her father had a similar name to the boy, Hiroshi. So it seemed possible to assume that this mysterious boy was related to them, so she waved off the nearest guard, relieving him of his guard duty in favor of collecting more information on the matter.

But break time was over, it was time to consult her father.

The throne room as always was dimly lit, the only source of light being the flame wall around the throne. Halting before the throne she bowed deeply, spine rigid.

"So, Azula, I hear that there has been a new arrival," Ozai's voice and the reputation that preceded it was enough to inspire terror in most men, but Azula could take it.

"Yes, father. He is from a land far north and rides a dragon. He's a skilled bender and could even redirect lightning like an uncle," Ozai raised his eyebrows at the mention of the rare technique, "but he claims he was trained by his dragon, and he had no knowledge of anything from any of the four nations. He even writes in a different language. His name is Hikroh, and I believe I found his mother's family."

"Interesting, keep an eye on the boy. See if he can be of any use, especially with the dragon," Ozai had a sinister smirk, "I don't think I need to give you any more lectures on how to command people, do I?"

"No, father, you've taught me well."

Well, sorry for the long delay! I didn't intend for that to happen but unfortunately, I had a bit of a clog in my production line. But on the bright side, I have plenty of chapters waiting in the wings! I hope this was worth the wait.
And as always, thanks again to Octobot for the beta reading!