A stir, a crack, an rupture, lets shattering commence so much easier...
Toothless woke and yawned widely, then he glanced at the window and confirmed that it was exactly at dawn as intended.
He unfurled his wings and heard, as expected, sleepy groaning coming from his brother. But it was still better than many times before, as he started properly struggling just after being carried just two steps by the scruff of his shirt, instead of doing it when Toothless was already halfway through walking down the stairs.
Hiccup mumbled something about letting him sleep, but the sound of regurgitating coming from the dragon sent him into a frenzy to make a normal meal, instead of facing half-digested (or more) fish. While Hiccup was at it, Toothless retrieved his own meal composed of two dozens of delicious cod, before glancing at another two dozens of his favorite fish just lying there in the pantry and licking his lips. But before he made one step, he was spotted and froze.
Hiccup rolled his eyes. "You do remember what happened the last time you ate double your already gigantic meal? Or is your memory as bad as a toddler's?"
The night fury grumbled under his nose and turned away from the pantry, nearly whining at the closing doors. Hiccup's giggle earned a human death-glare look; at that, he promptly skedaddled to get Toothless' saddle and prosthetic.
Soon enough they were out and about. There was commotion at the square before the great hall, with Mildew yelling something, but still their first stop was the smithy, where Toothless already twisted his nose in anticipation of Gobber's smelly smell.
"Hi Gobber, is there a problem?"
Gobber threw his hands up. "Yes, I need more hands! There are more than enough Gronckles around to smelt all the iron I could ever need, but they aren't going to forge it! I need lads to actually work with the stuff. A lot of them."
Hiccup rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Would I suffice?"
"With the amount of those flying ironworks around? I would need fifty to make use of all this material!"
Hiccup gaped. "Fifty!? There are only two hundred humans on Berk!"
The blacksmith groaned. "I know! But there is a ton of lumberjacks that have nothing to do around, and I can certainly use their help, even if they aren't going to go beyond the basics anytime soon."
Hiccup was bewildered. Toothless just sat and listened with curiosity.
"Lumberjacks? But they always have a lot to do! Rebuilding houses—" It dawned on Hiccup. "We don't need to rebuild houses so often anymore."
Gobber nodded. "Yeah, and this Timberjack you brought a week ago cut down all the trees we usually need for a year in one fell swoop, after the lumberjacks cut down all the branches, a bunch of Gronckles gave the wood a lift, and the only work left to do was to prepare the stuff to dry. There is no room for more of it at this point."
Hiccup whistled, and Toothless cringed at the sound. "Now that is efficiency. Have you talked to them already?"
"I told Stoick to send me a few of them, but guess what, there is a lot of other stuff to do."
So they went to other craftsmen and discovered a crisis that was slowly brewing, with no one the wiser of its existence while they focused on something else. Shipwrights needed more hands to build more ships, both to rebuild the Berk fleet that was left in tatters after just one strike of the Red Death, and to churn out more fishing boats to make use of all the dragons helping with fishing, which in turn led to fishermen being understaffed and all spare nets getting used. This, in turn, led to smokehouses overflowing with food, even despite a big share of it being left for the dragons to eat as they pleased. Nadders ploughed the ground almost instantly with their tails in comparison to yaks with actual plops. Builders assembled new buildings with amazing speed thanks to the hilarious ease with which dragons carried heavy construction elements—though there was serious competition for wood planks between them and shipwrights, and they both were running out of nails that Gobber couldn't hope to produce fast enough alone. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
All in all, it was complete economic chaos. Only the leatherworkers and weavers were not affected, as all of the processes required human dexterity anyway.
But as the staff demands for many jobs were rendered smaller and smaller, leaving people without anything to do, others expanded exponentially, paradoxically putting their production nearly to a stop because of the need to train new employees.
Three hours after leaving the house, the duo found Stoick rubbing his temples, leaning against one of the statues before the great hall.
"I am sorry, dad. I should have predicted it. There were bound to be consequences of the dragons' help. I—"
Hiccup began to feel as if it was one of the catastrophes before Toothless, just a much, much more serious one, that could not be repaired as simply as rebuilding a destroyed house. But to his disbelief, Stoick shook his head and patted Hiccup on the arm comfortingly.
"I should have seen it coming when it became obvious just how much even a few dragons can do. I tasked you specifically with bringing more dragons here, negotiating with them to agree to fight alongside us when the need arises, not with predicting what it all will cause. It is not your fault."
Hiccup smiled gingerly, but his face fell soon enough. "So what are we going to do now?"
The chief sighed heavily. "We certainly don't need more dragons. Put your diplomatic mission on hold. We need more skilled craftsmen and fishermen. Thankfully, there are a lot of lumberjacks and farmers left with nothing to do. It will take time to train them, though, so there will be not enough of a lot of goods and a complete overflow of others. I am going to tell the builders and shipwrights to slow down so we will not run out of wooden planks. And I'll tell the lumberjacks to make planks from not-yet-dried wood; ships and buildings made from those aren't going to last long, but before they will break, we will have time to make more solid ones. Hopefully, it will be enough. Also, to have a place to dry more wood. Gods know we will need a lot of it."
Hiccup fidgeted uncertainly, overwhelmed by the wealth of information. "Shouldn't I take care of Mildew?"
"No, nothing will help until the situation stabilizes, so we must do what we can to sort it as fast as possible."
Stoick frowned. "You could train new blacksmiths. It is one of the major bottlenecks now. I told two dozen people to go to the smithy."
Hiccup turned to leave but was stopped by a gigantic hand on his shoulder. "And Hiccup, don't overwork yourself."
The teen nodded and sprang to action. Or rather, Toothless carried him there, a worried expression on the dragon's face. He understood one thing clearly; they were all vulnerable now.
The next few hours found Toothless fidgeting uncertainly near the forge, without anything to do for the first time in a long time. Humans sent both him and the other dragons' unpleasant glances as the mood in the village soured due to the crisis that spiralled out of control before it became visible to anyone.
He was approached by a human, and he narrowed his eyes.
"What are you doing?" the human asked.
Toothless shrugged. The female frowned deeper.
"Just sitting around? Come, we need help."
He raised his paws, showcasing his very non-dexterous claws. She sighed.
"Can you hold a net without tearing it apart?"
The night fury eyed the insistent human suspiciously, but Hiccup called over from the forge, soothing his worries.
"It's my aunt. Go and help her."
Toothless bared his teeth, and before he knew it, he was entering a small boat with one human already on it. In total, there was one Night Fury and two humans when they made their way out.
The human male, who had the smell of the female he'd come with on him, was waiting in the boat. He looked at Toothless with gritted teeth, a sign of anger, but said nothing.
The female, quite the opposite, said, "Where is the sail? We can't row all the way there, fish, and then row back!"
The human huffed and responded, not letting his gaze leave Toothless even for a moment. "It tore last time, don't you remember?"
"What about the spare?"
"You sold it because someone offered you a high price."
Toothless broke up the argument by gripping a protruding piece of wood and unfurling his wings to their full extent, propelling the boat. He couldn't see in the direction it was going, however, so he let them droop back down.
"Keep it up, I'll steer. Snotspit, get to the bow and watch out for others!"
The night fury followed the female's instructions, and they made their way out of the port. The humans threw their nets into the water, and soon enough, a Monstrous Nightmare herded fish toward them. All three started pulling, causing the boat to tilt.
Toothless's eyes narrowed as the tilting became alarming. He pulled stronger on the net inside his mouth, stepping back and managing to get the net and fish on board, but very nearly throwing it onto the other side even worse than it was on this. Thankfully, they managed to balance it before they all ended up in the ocean.
"That was close," the female remarked. The male looked at Toothless contemplatively, and the dragon's stomach growled.
The female laughed good-naturedly. "You certainly earned your share. Here, take it."
She separated a fourth of the fish they'd caught and gave it to the dragon, who gulped it all down ravenously.
"With that kind of fill, we're going to have the boat full in no time at all. Let's set up the next one."
Hiccup emerged from the forge, unsteady on his feet, only to find that Toothless wasn't there. At first, he was surprised and a little frightened, but then he remembered where the dragon had gone midday and set off for one of the houses near the docks, belonging to his aunt and her family and a few other Jorgensons not fortunate enough to be living in the longhouse at the central square.
They weren't there, though, so he waited, dozing lightly as he leaned against the house. He was jolted out of this state by a bizarre sight that entered the alleyway: Toothless dragging a cart stuffed with fish, strapped to it with a horse collar as if he was some kind of draft animal.
Toothless perked up at the sight of his human and, by doing so, made two humans spot Hiccup as well.
"Hi Hiccup," said his aunt, smiling tiredly. "We had such a big load today that we wouldn't have made it up the slopes without him. We wouldn't have been able to sail without him; he used those wings as sails, and what sails they were! We outran everyone. Thanks."
Hiccup waved it away. "Thank him, he was the one doing it after all. And get him out of that."
"Fine, fine," said Snotspit dismissively and undid the contraption from the Night Fury before hesitantly patting him on the arm.
"Thanks, pal."
The dragon nodded in response and stretched out like a cat before leaping towards Hiccup.
"Are you even tired?" the dragon responded with a toothless smile, then yawned.
"Yep, I am also tired. Let's go home, buddy."
They made their way to the main square and towards the Haddock longhouse, but Toothless's ears perked up and he pointed at a blurred shape outside the Ingerman residence, which proved to be Fishlegs and Meatlug.
Fishlegs jumped a little when they approached. "Hi-hi."
They both nodded in response. Hiccup inquired, "So, are you going to research the Red Death now? It's kind of late..." One glance at the sky made him shake his head in dismissal. "Never mind, it's still afternoon. I guess I feel like that because someone decided for me to wake up early and we've been kept busy all this time."
The teen nodded nervously. "Y-yes, I am going there."
Hiccup nodded and mounted Toothless, as Fishlegs did with Meatlug. They flew—or rather, Toothless waited for the Gronckle impatiently—but before they got beyond Berk's shores, they were joined by a specific Monstrous Nightmare; the ex-alpha that had challenged Stoick less than a week ago.
"What are you doing here?" Hiccup asked.
The dragon flexed his jaws and responded in a raspy, barely intelligible (and completely unintelligible to Toothless) islandic Norse.
"You are going away. You are the chief's son. And a high-ranking Night Fury. I will follow."
Hiccup nodded. "No problem, you can come along, the more the merrier."
Toothless grumbled, and Hiccup leaned forward with a smug grin.
"Are you pouting, baby boo?" Toothless readied his ear-fins threateningly, and his rider leaned back with his hands raised in a gesture of surrender.
"Fine, fine, why don't you like him anyway?"
"Dragons outside this area have a prejudice against Night Furies."
Hiccup squinted. "Why?"
The Night Fury sighed. "Something about us living shorter than them."
A terrible thought crept into Hiccup's mind, and he tensed. Toothless, of course, sensed it.
"Don't worry, we'll likely both die in one of those crazy stunts of yours before my black heart decides to detonate."
Hiccup blinked, incredulous. "Black heart? Detonate?"
"It's a thing only Night Furies have, that kills us sooner or later, or when intentionally triggered, leaving behind only a black stone."
"That's terrible!"
"Can you keep to Latin?" Hiccup nodded sheepishly; it was private talk after all.
"And don't worry, most go off before a Night Fury cracks its eggshell. It usually takes at least a few dozen years for those that get through it. Only ones that need to worry about it detonating at any moment are the Gifted."
Hiccup shook his head while stroking Toothless comfortingly.
"That isn't reassuring. Most of you die in birth... hatching? And you live... well, as long as most humans, it seems. And who are these Gifted, and why are they at higher risk of dying at any moment?"
"The Gifted have one of four gifts of varying power, for which they pay a steep price; Instant, Gaze, Flicker, and Star. They... would prefer not to have it because it means that they are deformed to some extent. It involves basically anything—different size, messed-up proportions, scales of weird colours, or a complete lack of them, blindness, deafness, and anything else you can think of. Some of those make it impossible to live without help, and none are easy to deal with."
Hiccup was going to ask what these 'gifts' that sounded more like curses did, but he was distracted by the Monstrous Nightmare.
"This, I... don't... understand."
"This is another tongue, another language."
"Humans have more?"
Hiccup nodded. "Yup, the one we are using is Islandic Norse. There are also Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Norwegian Norse tongues. They are somewhat similar. Then there is also Arabic, and lastly, Latin. There's said to be more, but I don't know those."
The dragon was thoroughly bewildered and only muttered, "Very many." Hiccup smothered a laugh at the poor thing's expense and straightened at the glare the Monstrous Nightmare sent him. Right. Just because he talks like a child doesn't mean it in any way reflects his intellect.
"Sorry."
The rest of the one-and-a-half-hour trip went quickly, with Toothless performing aerial maneuvers out of boredom from being forced to conform to the Gronckle's pace.
The ex-alpha gaped at the sight of the Red Death's corpse, bare bones and meat scattered around a section of the island. They landed near its waist, shredded open but more or less in one piece. The biggest piece, anyway. Hiccup cringed at the sight; Toothless was indifferent, and Fishlegs...
"To study it close, such an opportunity!" The bulky teenager went to the waist, and then, inside it. Hiccup groaned, muttered "gross," and followed him, with Meatlug and Toothless not far behind, only the ex-alpha staying and looking over the corpse with amazement.
There wasn't much space inside, to say the least. Fishlegs squeezed between surprisingly not rotting fleshy walls. Hiccup, following behind, just barely managed to evade touching them, and couldn't help but think of the fact that they were literally walking through the wound.
Not even that he himself was responsible for it. He couldn't help but wonder if there was another way, if it could have ended with something other than killing.
This thought was cut short as Fishlegs gasped, and Hiccup looked at what elicited this reaction.
At first glance of black scales and the characteristic shape of a Night Fury tail, with fins at the base, tail-fins at the tip, and spikes in an orderly line, he thought he was seeing Toothless. However, where a sleek torso should be, there was a far wider one, with wings looking nearly like fins at the base of the tail, only pointed in the opposite direction. Then, one thick neck, splitting into two at the end, each with its own head—heads that looked like a Zippleback's, but flatter and more elongated.
No, it wasn't like a Zippleback's head, it was Zippleback's head, although deformed, just like the rest of the body, as if being in the process of being turned into... a Night Fury.
A Chimaera was nestled within a fleshy cocoon falling apart, two thick tendrils still inside the dragon's mouths, and many more latched onto different parts of its body.
"I-I recognize those scales, Hiccup. It is the same Zippleback that was eaten by the Hungry One when we escaped from the nest!"
Hiccup stumbled back and was supported by the Night Fury as they both stared. "So you're going to tell me that the dragons the Red Death ate were turned into Night Furies?"
Toothless shook his head. "No, only I and one female were in the nest, there were no other Night Furies. Maybe... maybe it did it because it lost me?"
"But then why didn't it just make more Night Furies in the first place?"
Toothless shrugged, and Fishlegs finally stepped aside from the deformed body, trembling. Not for the reason he should have, though.
"That—that is incredible! It puts into question the relationship between the Red Death and dragons, no, it puts into question the origin of dragons."
Hiccup turned to Toothless with a quirked eyebrow. "Are there any legends about dragon origins?"
The dragon responded indifferently. "My memories are still in bad shape, remember?"
Both Hiccup and Fishlegs slumped a little.
"I guess I'll need to ask other dragons when we get back," muttered Fishlegs. Soon they left the burly teenager, his Gronckle, and the Monstrous Nightmare to their own devices and flew back to Berk. Not weighed down by a Gronckle, they made it in barely twenty minutes, going extra-fast due to the pent-up energy that Toothless had accumulated.
As they neared the islet where the town was located, Hiccup inquired, "How do you think we should check up on the second Night Fury!—I mean, Pebble?"
Toothless responded with a noncommittal grunt. It meant close enough to 'yes' for Hiccup, and the teenager leaned in the direction of the Ingerman longhouse.
Soon enough, Hiccup was knocking on the door, which was opened by none other than Fishlegs' father, Fishvoice Ingerman, or, by his original name, Ragnar Hallvardsson.
The man in his early thirties had a welcoming and kind expression, but it instantly became rigid and almost snarling the moment he spotted Toothless.
"Hi, is something wrong?"
Fishvoice didn't respond, glaring at the Night Fury. The dragon's pupils narrowed a little, and Toothless bristled but refrained from snarling, worried that doing so would set the human off. He had seen this kind of cold fury in someone's eyes only a few times in his life, and it was never a good sign.
"Fishvoice? Ragnar? You're starting to scare me."
He shook his head. "I just can't understand why, in the name of God, you would let this thing not only live but also do as it pleases."
Ingerman's voice was not raised, and yet, or because of it, it sounded more dangerous. Hiccup would usually feel offended when someone spoke about Toothless like that, but in this case, he just sighed.
"Not every Night Fury took part in the Blitz, only a small part of them."
Fishvoice's glare didn't even twitch, and Toothless snarled. Still, he wasn't making any move, and that unsettled the duo of friends more than anything else.
"But you know it. And you can know it only from it." Hiccup backed away by a step, gulping.
"I have a name," Toothless grumbled in Latin, and the human's head snapped back.
"You don't deserve a name, freedom, pity, mercy, or anything but suffering after what you have done!"
Everything froze in the aftermath of the furious exclamation, except for the Night Fury. "Humans kill each other all the time. What is the difference—"
"Kill each other for territory, for resources, because of greed or ambition, but you? You killed for none of those things. You just wanted us all DEAD. You killed us out of hatred deeper than the hell itself."
"You did the same."
Fishvoice stopped and blinked, disoriented. Toothless used this opportunity to deliver a few sentences in a cold, detached voice.
"We killed you, you killed us, we killed each other for generations using everything we could think of. You were better at it in the long run, so we came up with a better way of doing it on our own. That is it."
"Then why? Why are you even here?"
"Because it is the first time there is another option besides fight, flight, or submission," Hiccup cut in. Fishvoice deflated somewhat and stepped aside.
"Come and do whatever you are here for." He went away, passing someone that was likely drawn in by the screams.
"I came to meet you," Hiccup said. "It's been a long time. Have we even talked since the nest?" Hiccup sent Toothless a pointed look, and the dragon took the hint, following the scent of the Night Fury to check up on her.
Pebble was lying on some furs in the left corner of the hallway that ran the length of the house, with her torn wing outstretched, a piece of metal on her neck, another one around her hind leg that was linked to the wall, and a muzzle around her jaws. He glanced at it, but the runes engraved were complete gibberish to him, as he had barely even seen any Norse writing at this point.
*Hi, Toothless,* She interrupted his thought process.
*Hi, Pebble. What are those things for?*
He cut straight to the point after exchanging greetings, for all he knew, the piece on her neck was some strange form of 'fashion' humans enjoyed, but the one chaining her to the wall was a bit... disconcerting, and the muzzle even more so.
She got a bit sheepish; well, more sheepish.
*I broke something, and the humans were angry, so they got another human, and then placed it on me. It's... punishment.*
He hummed. *That would be a weird one since you need to rest to heal anyway.*
At this exact moment, Hiccup and a human—the same one that made pleasant sounds and stared at him furiously at his very first time in the great hall, and the one he argued with a while ago—now stepped towards them both.
"—But all those trophies, for dragons, it must be as for us seeing human heads on display."
Toothless caught just enough of the dialogue to make out another weird issue Hiccup had and rolled his eyes.
"Hiccup, this is not a problem. Why would you even think that?"
"Because for me, it would be very disconcerting to see someone keeping a human head on the wall."
"If something is disconcerting for me here, it is this muzzle."
He pointed at Pebble with his tail, and Hiccup's eyes widened.
"What?!"
"Exactly."
Hiccup inhaled and explained, clenching his fists.
"This... this marks her as a thrall of the House Ingerman for a period of... twenty years?"
"She broke a vase, the vase." Fishvoice Ingerman elaborated emotionlessly. Hiccup paled. Fishvoice frowned and added, "Though I cannot fathom why the law-speaker sentenced her only to indentured servitude, not chattel. That thing was worth a lot more than a decade or two of cheap labour, even of a creature as strong as several men."
Hiccup rubbed his forehead. "Twenty...? That is maximum allowed sentence..."
He was interrupted. "There is evidence of dragons reaching superhuman age, as some of them were recognized as the same ones across whole centuries, so not that much time in comparison."
Fishvoice hesitated a bit before speaking up again, seeing how upset Hiccup was, with wide eyes, rapid breaths and clenched fists. "If you have enough money to pay for the vase—"
It was Hiccup's turn to interrupt. "There's not enough money on Berk, heck, maybe even in the entire archipelago; this is one of the first-generation relics."
"Oh."
Hiccup groaned and looked down at the metal on Pebble's neck and the writing on it. Toothless tilted his head, exasperated; he still hadn't received an explanation for what it all meant.
"Wait, you don't know what 'Thrall' means?" Thankfully, Hiccup read his expression correctly.
"How to put it... someone that belongs to someone else, not as a person but as... a thing."
The dragon's eyes narrowed, but he kept his cool. "So I was a thrall of the Hungry One?"
Hiccup nodded, and Toothless primed his fire. "No! What are you doing?!"
The dragon gawped at the human blocking his way. "Freeing her, of course! What are YOU doing?"
Hiccup looked morosely at the Night Fury. "If you do it, we'll have to leave Berk. It's a legal sentence; they have the right to do it, and we have no right to force them not to."
"Right? You say they are right?" Toothless repeated incredulously. Hiccup hastily shook his head.
"They are not right, but they have the right. It means two different things. And if we... interrupt, no... encroach on this right, they will defend it."
Toothless snarled, calculated fury welling up in his eyes. "So we fight."
Then he immediately pounced at Fishvoice, who in the meantime had readied his weapon. The dragon threw the human to the ground before Hiccup had a chance to stop him. The hatchet slid away on the floor, and the human struggled beneath the dark dragon, freezing upon hearing a sudden snap and seeing claws curve themselves into menacing hooks.
"We can't fight all the Ingermans!" "Not in melee, but I can always dive-bomb." "It isn't that simple!"
Toothless knocked Fishvoice on the head and turned to the flurry of Ingermans that were descending from the higher level of the structure. They had numerical superiority, to be sure, but were disorganized and not that numerous, since many of them were out and about. The ones left were mostly too young or too old and, in many cases, not even armed to fight. He primed a proper plasma bolt, waiting for them to cluster closer together to increase the effectiveness of the shot. Then, when they would be dazed and bloodied, he would free Pebble, and they would fight their way out—
A small, frail limb forced its way into his mouth, despite the flames ready to strike from it, and he panicked and backed away. But Hiccup followed him, so he was forced to smother them so as not to burn him. "Mmmph!"
Hiccup shook his head. "No. I will resolve this, but not this way. Calm down."
It wasn't like he had much choice in the matter since the teen kept his arm inside his mouth, completely ignoring the slowly accumulating drool while he spoke.
"Sorry for that. Toothless has a pretty... vocal opinion about thraldom."
"I bet it is because it's another Night Fury." Muttered the elder man, and Hiccup's eyes widened as he realized it was the Ingerman clan patriarch. Toothless backed away and shook his head, which prompted the humans to raise their weapons and shields again.
"It doesn't matter to whom it happens, it is simply wrong."
The dragon replied and snarled, and one of the Ingermans whispered a translation to the Patriarch's ear. The man frowned. "No, it is not. She broke an extremely valuable and unique property, one that cannot be repaired, replicated, or acquired, and it is only fitting to repay this debt."
"Sure, it is due to repay, but not to be deprived of freedom in the process! What kind of justice is that?!" Toothless retorted.
"One that guarantees the debt will be paid back in the event of the debtor lacking money. Now leave, and I will forget any of this has happened."
Hiccup was rubbing his arm in a circle during the entire argument, and finally, Toothless relented, sending only a vicious glare as they left the longhouse.
He narrowed his eyes at the fat human leaving the body of the fallen starborn; the human's behaviour had been suspicious all the time since he lost the fight and became a subject of Stoick the Vast. But he hadn't had the opportunity to follow him yet, at least not in a way that didn't expose what was happening. After all, he would be plainly visible in the open air.
This time, however, he had the opportunity. The fog covering this entire area of the sea was ample cover, and even when he was forced to ascend to the cover of clouds when the fog ended, it wasn't obvious that he was following him. It was too great a distance to discern that it was him for either the human or his companion, and this place wasn't exactly desolate; there was a sizable dragon nest here. He hadn't had this problem, though; he just tracked the dot that was his target from this distance attentively enough to not mistake it for any of the few others around.
The flight was boring; this dragon, Meatlug, was slow, even for a Gronkle. Perhaps it was because she carried a human and didn't have as broad wings as other kinds to support the additional weight.
Eventually, they reached a very grey and spiky island, with a human nest on it. He warily descended, not wanting to be recognized, but possessing no other option if he wanted to actually see what was happening.
Thankfully, they were too focused on another dot that approached them to even glance in his direction, granting him the opportunity to circle the trio and land a good distance away on a stone formation. He crept toward its edge to see them.
The third dot proved to be a human, a female. She was tense but also happy. Skyfire started connecting the dots; he gathered as much information about his target as he could with his limited communication abilities. He knew that the human—Fishlegs' mother, Hilda Ingerman—was to be killed because of her attack on Hiccup but had disappeared overnight (he still couldn't quite grasp why they would wait with the killing). And who would be more tempted to set her free than her own offspring?
He took his time to meticulously register all features of the female while she was granted some items by Fishlegs, and while they talked afterward. Due to the wind screeching across the rugged terrain, he couldn't discern a word out of the conversation, though.
Suddenly, he was jostled from this focus by stones rummaging, and sure enough, a group of humans was walking toward the trio, with their shining claws—weapons—at the ready.
They were behaving suspiciously and may have defied the judgment of a high-ranking member of the flock. Discovering and uncovering that was sure to increase his own position, but they were part of his flock. Failing to protect them for his own benefits would be cowardly at best and traitorous at worst.
"Perhaps you might persuade the Bog Burglars that you were banished because of...not behaving like a proper wife?" Fishlegs said. "Though we are to hold a gathering with them after the winter storms, so perhaps...further away? I don't think the mainlanders care about the banishment sign as we do."
She winced. "You'll be away too long to possibly explain yourself if we do that, and I don't want you to be banished for helping me escape."."
This was what Skyfire had been waiting for. "I—I... I can tell that I am going on a quest!", he said. "I also know where dragons are nesting on Berk; you could hide elsewhere, and besides, I don't think they would even know what this sign means! You can stay hidden for the night, and then I'll fly you away."
Fireling turned to Monstrous Nightmare and gestured at his mother. "Umm, can she fly with you? She can't stay here; they will harm her, so..."
He was good at fighting, but three against one would still be very risky. And as much as the idea of carrying a traitor repulsed him, he would just point to her location when they got back — after he revealed Fishlegs' treason.
"...Yes," he said.
The outcast female stepped back in shock, but she did not attack, and her offspring eventually coaxed her onto his shoulders. He kept a wary ear on her throughout the flight back to the nest and positioned himself behind Meatlug.
The female was deposited in the forest, on yet-unclaimed territory, and they then headed back to the nest. The human was not suspicious of him, which was strange because he had just seen and heard evidence of this human's crime. Perhaps he thought he was not familiar enough with humans to understand what was going on. But to his plight, Skyfire had busied himself with acquiring the knowledge necessary to achieve a higher status and to become a more direct part of the tribe than most.
When Fishlegs neared his longhouse, Skyfire swiftly moved to the longhouse of the Hoffersons, already constructing an explanation in his mind—oh, he thought. I don't know enough specific words in Icelandic to elaborate.
Thankfully, a particular Nadder dragoness, granted the honor of nesting in the longhouse of one of the five clans, was known for her extraordinary ability with the Icelandic tongue; he just needed to ask her for assistance.
He found the dragoness managing to chit-chat with some humans in Icelandic. It was truly impressive, considering that she did it in a way typical to Nadders.
"It isn't your hide? I thought you all just have softer hands and heads! So your are like boneknappers; you have only soft skin, so you cover yourself with things!"
Skyfire landed and then blinked at the dragoness standing near the laundry hanger, incredulous. It was hard to follow the unending stream of words, and he couldn't make head or tail of this conversation.
"Pretty much, yeah. We have others for different situations too," muttered the adult human female.
"Different situations? Are some for being pretty?"
"Yes. But those ones are usually more delicate and get dirty more easily, or rather, it is far more visible on them, so we wear those only on special occasions."
There was a little pause, then he spoke up in the language of dragons. *Stormfly? Can I ask for your assistance?*
*Yeah, what is it?*
*I have something very important to report, but I don't know the necessary words.*
*Sure! Who do you need to speak to?*
*...A justice dignitary.*
She tilted her head. *Justice... aah, right. I know where he is. Follow me!*
They arrived soon enough.