The past may seem hulking and overpowering, however, its power over the present is smaller than some may think.


This place was called Berk. It snowed here for 9 months of the year, during the winter and during the devastating winter with occasional hail. And even in the short summer, winter seemed to bite at the edges, trying to extend its cold clutches.

Or, at least, that was how Twig explained it to him with wide gestures and an even wider smile, very proud of introducing his nest to him.

Winter had bitten at summer recently, just a few days after he became part of Twig's nest. After waiting another week to ensure winter's grip was secure and that it wouldn't dissipate as it sometimes did unpredictably, they readied some sort of... something. He really had no clue what all this fuss was about.

Night Fury decided to ask his Twig after they finished their morning flight; he was not going to start his day with a language lesson.

So, he curtly jumped on top of the roof. When this failed to get Twig's attention, he did it again and again, growing impatient, until he was ready to come inside and snatch up the fledgling straight from his lair, which was the exact moment the spindly human decided to exit through the wooden den's mouth.

"Good morning, Mr. Bossy."

The dark dragon laughed at what was a joke, even if the meaning flew right over his head, and Twig imitated him, finally making a proper laugh, instead of human noises!

A few antics later, they took to the air, swirling around sea stacks and towards- oh no.

Before he could even think of protesting, his human detached his fake leg from the saddle and stood up, freaking the dragon out.

Seriously! Again!?

By constantly repositioning his sub-wings, keeping tail-fin completely still and tilting wings, he managed to remain in the air for just a tad more than before, just enough for Twig to land on him.

"Yes! Finally!"

His ear-fin twitched, but he couldn't bring himself to thwack Twig with it. Wrrrr, he couldn't deny to himself that he enjoyed this stunt as well.

"What do you say bud, wanna go again?"

The words don't properly register in his mind because of the sound he heard: countless wingbeats. Soon they were spinning between hundreds of dragons flying straight at them. And just when he thought it all is under control, Twig's horns fell off!

Night Fury dived rapidly after it, focusing on his target, accompanied by countless wing-beats near, narrowing his pupils, readying to—to—

"Wait. Toothless, stop."

He was torn from this action by his human, and they headed back to the village, Night Fury carefully observing the skies the whole time before they landed.

While humans started talking with Twig, a blue and yellow Spiked-Tail dragoness hovered near him and squawked farewell, he responded in kind, and she headed off, to the rest of the enormous flight.

Enormous flight...it tingled at his mind, but he couldn't discern why, the memory distinctly fuzzy.

He shook it off and wandered around the village, inquisitive but careful, wary of any other attackers that may wait for a chance to strike. The other humans mostly seemed indifferent, but he earned some resentful glances, which he found weird considering that those were from people that were sad about dragons leaving.

What was so different about him? Sure, each time a sudden explosion tore apart something, or someone, blame was on him, but...

Each time? But wasn't there someone else like him in the nest? He stopped and tilted his head, mentally glaring at his undisciplined memories and ordering them to stand in order. It wasn't working particularly well, but well enough that he could confirm that indeed, he wasn't the only Night Fury in the nest.

Still, recalling the second one was hard. He was pretty sure that it was a female, a big female, that helped him sometimes, and he helped in turn, nevertheless, he had a nagging feeling that there was something more to it than just that, but couldn't recall it no matter how hard he tried.

He sighed and sniffed, finding Twig's scent, and followed it absent-mindedly. His human had always helped with frustrations, always calming him down with incredible ease. And those… those were just memories, past. However, despite that, he stopped at a cliff near where Hiccup was now, the dragon staring at the horizon, engulfed by a fuzzy memory of a giant flock of his kind.

It was so nagging, but he couldn't do anything about it, and eventually he laid down to sleep after returning to Twig's wooden den.

The next morning, Night Fury sprang to his paws and jumped on top of the wooden nest to draw Twig's attention. Twig, however, wasn't there at all; he was nearly at the corner of his den, carrying something in his paws. The excited dragon wasn't focusing enough to discern the weird human words.

He sniffed at the thing presented to him and turned to the village, uncomfortable with putting his back towards it, letting his human attach the new thing, then sliding it from below him and-

His tail-fin was held by something! Not again! He waved it around, trying to throw it off, but it was of no use! He couldn't burn it either, the membrane was far too delicate-

"Dam?"

The big dragoness purred gently at him upon entering the cave he was resting in, and strode in his direction.

"Stay here. We resolved this matter already."

"What? It was to be my command! Dam, can I at least join them?"

His dam shook her head decisively.

"No, you stay here."

His eyes half-lid and he sighed, two seconds later sending his dam an exasperated look.

"You are lying, he would never promise me something only to change his plans without even informing me."

"He sent me to inform you, and take care of you."

She responded and started licking him, but he backed away immediately.

"That don't sound like him. Mater-Fulgur, I am not a fireling! You don't need to babysit me!"

Her ears slumped and she whined.

"I hoped that it wouldn't come to this."

"W-what? Wait! No, go away, go away!"

She wasn't listening, she never listened if this topic came up, and he was swiftly pinned to the ground by the stronger nocta furae despite his best efforts, the dragon stilling completely as his dam's snout touched his neck.

"Please, don't do it."

His voice was nearly childish, and he couldn't hold back a whimper, but how else could he articulate his feelings when being subdued by his parent in such a humiliating way?

"It is for your own good, little one, I can fish you salmon if you want!"

He closed his eyes, a swirling vortex of feelings in his head. She was doing it again, bargaining with him like he was still a fireling.

"It isn't about that, and you know it perfectly well, you can't treat me like that for my whole life just because you lost your last-"

The dark-blue dragon woke up, glanced to the entrance of the cave he was in, and then at his tail-fins, and two shackles, one on the said aerial body part, and the second on his tail, connected by four metal bars, depriving him of flight, impossible to remove safely, with risk of both harm to himself and rendering the thing much harder to remove by melting its locking mechanism if he was to use his fire, the only thing at his disposal that could destroy it.

At least those ones are lined with leather so they aren't uncomfortable, he thought, evidently his dam requested improvements from the last time.

He was looking at restraints morosely for a while more before proceeding to gnaw at it with his teeth sheathed and whines escaping his throat.

He didn't even raised his head when he heard footsteps, expecting comforting purring, licking, and tasteful salmon. But it was none of that. Instead, he heard a cold, emotionless, analytical voice.

"She did it again."

He looked up at his Sire, trembling.

"Please, please, take it off. "

He closed in without any sound other than footsteps in their family cave and rummaged through his backpack, salvaging key from its chaotic interior, and utilized it to unlock the restraints.

As shackles were slid off his tail, he pieced together facts.

"You allowed her. You knew she was nagging crafters to make it, and got keys for yourself."

"You are... correct."

"Why didn't you stop her!?" Proles Tonitrua snapped.

"I thought keeping you safe would help her."

"So why did you promise me that I can join Thirteen Wing while knowing that she will restrain me?! If you think she has the right to do it then just don-!"

"Because it is not helping her!"

It was his dad's turn to snap, and they both went silent for a few seconds.

"Go to the Thirteen Wing, take command, head north-west, towards the place humans were fleeing Blitz to, flush them out and exterminate qualified settlements, way of dealing with the rest is your choice as long as it is not direct attack unless lack of effective weaponry is confirmed, scouts present in formation know specifics.

He stood up and looked at his father uneasily, he turned his gaze away, staring into the distance.

"If she shows up and tries anything, you have my permission to subdue her as you would any aggressive dragon."

He nuzzled his father affectionately.

"Thanks dad."

The older nocta furae smiled and purred quietly.

"You don't need to thank me."

"Don't start with this again," he responded teasingly and his dad giggled.

He licked him on the nose and sprung out of the cave, and then into the air, before any response could arrive.

He arrived at his destination. Twenty pairs of eyes looked at him expectantly and he straightened, filled with self-confidence.

"Scouts, lead the way to the enclave you had found, all the rest, follow the inside tooth formation."

One nocta furae easily mistaken with a young fireling leaped at his back, and he looked at him questioningly. What was he even doing here?

"I am a good healer and have Instant, you remember Toni? "

He shook his wings and tail, readying for the long flight.

"Of course I do."

"Just not now," teased the undergrown nocta furae, a mighty leap into the air sending him from his friend's back erased the smug smile and induced a startled cry.

At last thrust, it unfolded into position perfectly identical to a real tail-fin. A quick test proved that it mimicked each movement of his actual body part. The dragon felt a bit of relief that he wasn't restrained yet again.

Before he had a chance to display it, a human voice tore him from his thoughts.

"Here you go, see? Got it?"

He turned to the human, feeling a little dizzy, unsure what to do.

Then the human reached towards him, and he backed away, unsure what to do for a split second for an unidentifiable reason before leaping up into the air, putting as much distance between himself and the entire human town as possible!

Outside the range of any human weapon, he took a series of deep breaths, steadying himself and deciding on his next course of action. The decision was easy; find the Blitz, relay information, and... and...

No matter, one thing at a time, he told himself, heading southeast, forcing his thoughts onto some sensible line.

How long had I been there? Let me think, there were... a lot of raids. Uh, it is getting me nowhere, at least I am in prime condition.

The Blitz should have moved towards the next section of the plan by this point, so they should be relatively easy to find, unless they finished this one as well, but I don't feel like THAT much time had passed.

Proles Tonitrua approached land, so narrow that he easily spotted both of its shores. There were ruins on the tip, facing towards the Island of Berk. He felt a pull towards it, an unexplainable, somewhat morbid curiosity. He quickly justified it as long-forgotten, dust-shrouded memories yearning to resurface and dived again.

The harbinger of death returned to the last place where he had brought true devastation, landing quietly and graciously on the former city square, surrounded by rubble on all sides, and prowling through ruins, warily taking his steps into the field of rotting wood so as to not end up pinned down or harmed.

After some time of trying to find the source of the nagging feeling, the dragon settled down and fell asleep between three completely destroyed structures. When he woke up and stretched and yawned, the Night Fury decided to search again before just ignoring the weird sensation and flying away.

He reached the desolate remains of the port without finding anything of interest and was ready to leap back into the skies, or find some place to sleep since it was already very late, but he spotted a shiny object, a helmet, he discerned quickly.

It was half-covered in some brown sediment, and only the tip of it was still in a really good state, but most of all, it was unnervingly similar to the helmet that human-Twig had.

It surely couldn't drift all the way here, Proles Tonitrua thought, but it didn't stop the cold chill creeping down his spine that should have turned him into a lifeless frozen statue.

No.

There was a skull inside the helmet, too small for a headgear, he yelped and stepped back.

No.

There were skulls and bones all around, bodies dug from beneath the ruins years ago by Thirteen Wing of the Blitz to be eaten, to provide nutrition for striking at yet another settlement without wasting time hunting mindless and harmless prey in the wild.

Trembling throughout his entire body, he shot back straight north towards the Isle of Berk, a recently liberated nest of dragons, a resilient human tribe, and his Twig.

No no no no no. This...just no! All reasoning left him at the mere thought of returning there only to find ruins, rubble, and a little crippled body.

His body grew weary, he was flying the entire day to reach this place after all, but he didn't stop for rest, allowing his body to stop maintaining maximum speed only upon seeing the town in the distance clearly enough to confirm that it hadn't been burned into a crisp and shattered into pieces by thundering blue flames in the deepest of the night.

Then he looked down and blinked in surprise, his long-range sight detecting metallic shine near the base of a cliff, on a narrow and empty beach.

One dive and climb later, he was nearing a big nest emanating sounds of joy and the smell of food with a horned helmet in his maw.

The dragon didn't even recall how he got from landing to nudging the gate open, but looking for Twig was a fully conscious endeavour.

"Toothless! Hey bud!"

Somewhat unbelieving, but exhilarated voice of his Twig was music to the dragon's ears, and the human tugged at his neck. He thought of returning the gesture with his paw, but it would leave him unbalanced so he decided against it.

"Bad dragon, very bad dragon. You scared me to death, don't ever stay away that long again and what's that in your maw...?"

His scolding was adorable, and of course Twig couldn't keep it up for long, and the night fury gladly responded to the question by repositioning the helmet on his human's head.

Everyone's disgust, including Twig's, was amusing.

"Yeah, you sure found my helmet."

Twig suddenly sparked with realisation.

"Ey! You found my helmet. That's where you've been?"

Toni nudged his human, not wanting him to worry and got a gaze filled with love in return.

"Buddy, thank you. You are amazing."

Everyone cheered, and Bold exclaimed before reaching up to his head and scratching his cheeks.

"Happy Snoggletog!"

What followed was a bit of a daze. At least after Smelly offered him a drink, everyone drank happily. The Night Fury woke hours later, curled around Smelly and surrounded by sleeping humans.

He shook himself and headed back to his family wooden den under the gaze of the moon, feeling strangely aggravated by the smallest of sensations. He sneaked into the den and waited out this feeling on the stone slab, not illuminating it to not wake up Twig.

During this recovery, he eyed his tail and the prosthetic tail-fin attached to it.

He wasn't knowledgeable about such things, but the work looked very intricate, something the Blitz's Crafters would be exhilarated to dissect and then copy, and let crippled nocta furaes take to the air yet again. However, he had no way of submitting it to them without getting seen and recognized, not even talking about returning, since that would require Twig's help, and for a human, there was no escaping the Blitz.

He wasn't exhilarated by it despite all the reasons he had for it; independence, ability to sustain himself, and go wherever and whenever he pleased, no longer depending on someone else to care for him.

Those were all very good reasons, ones he would be acutely intimate with before this entire chain of events, however now... he didn't feel even the slightest attraction to them.

Frankly, this thing was uncomfortably heavy and pinched his tail-fin with those little clamps that hold it, and it couldn't do more than mimic it, so it wasn't possible to perform more than basic manoeuvres with it.

And...and it had made him leave Twig. To just think of doing such terrible, terrible things to his little human; that alone was enough to make him feel sick.

So, he retrieved the old fake-fin and leather thing, and placed it outside, before waking his Twig the same way as many days before; leaping on top of the nest until he exited.

He heard the den's doors opening, and gently prompted Twig to come with an impatient warble.

"I'm coming, Toothless."

A few seconds later, he neared the corner, looking up at the roof.

"Alright bud, come on now, I was just..."

He stopped short at seeing the old things.

"Toothless, why would you pull this out for? No need for the saddle anymore, come on let's get going."

Twig nudged it to the side and motioned to the dragon, but he turned around and sat behind the things. Hiccup said something he had issues dissecting through and motioned to him again, he turned around again, now standing behind the fake-fin.

"Toothless?" Twig said his name incredulously, and he dismissed the question of what this means and focused on making a point.

By destroying the contraption on his tail.

Twig was shocked, and Tonitura suddenly felt bad, after all, it was kind of an offering, and he promptly rejected it at the sight of it. Maybe he should have gotten rid of it instead out of sight perhaps, but what was done is done, and he nudged his saddle sheepishly. After a while of him gingerly observing Twig's expression and searching for the smallest of twists, the human's lips turned up and his eyes slightly twinkled. A smile.

Soon they were in the air. The little weight on his back was truly exhilarating, and the thing of leather and iron wrapped around him didn't disrupt it in the slightest.

Years ago, it would infuriate him; years ago, he would screech and tear it apart unless made unable to do so.

But now? It wasn't even an inconvenience; it was a bit weird to have something clinging to him, but he barely felt it besides being aware of it being there.

He no longer cared because he trusted Twig to never ever use it against him or do anything to him against his will.

Because, truly, despite his crippled flight and dependence on others to do so much as survive, he was finally free.


The next nights were uneventful.

Though certainly not boring.

Be it when she was restrained to one place, or performing some human-ordered tasks like carrying things around, she always had audiences of idle or disobedient nocta furaes.

Mater Fulgur wasn't tired by it either. She was gladly telling all the stories of victory and ingenuity bringing their kind to its rightful place: at the top of the world and bringing humans to theirs: ashes.

After a day of performing senseless tasks that seemed to be there only to display her obedience she was leashed to a pole again, and Skyler voiced his question.

"How did you figure it out?"

"At first it was a question, 'so what is the plan?', and we don't have one, so the male that voiced the first question asked if we can observe humans for a while. It paid off.

"We observed humans travelling between their nests. Some were bigger and some smaller, but they seemed to be separated into two kinds; small, woody ones surrounded by prey and stretches of weird plants, and big, stony ones that seemed to have no purpose.

"Then we attacked some travelling humans. The ones going towards big nests carried food, the ones travelling from them had weird human things.

"Small nests provided food. Big nests provided weird human things, weird human things were dangerous to us, so-"

"You attacked big nests?"

She scoffed. "We did both, and found out that big-stony-nests had a lot of weird human things, and small-woody-nests had almost none. From this point, it was obvious which is an easier prey."

"We destroyed small-woody-nests, ate prey humans kept there, set fire to plants around it, and moved onto the next ones. We started as nothing but several claws and limbs, but soon our success made others willing to join, and we reached a number that is difficult to explain in basic speech; two hundred. From this point on, new recruits stopped trickling in, since news had spread far and wide, and most willing to help us had already arrived."

Skyler tilted his head.

"What about other dragons?"

Mater-Fulgur snickered.

"You know how they are, don't you?"

The male squinted.

"Not all of them."

She only grumbled.

"Many thought that they could take over the Blitz, considering us as a pack, but we aren't a pack, and we will not accept an alpha that just tries to bully our kind into submission. We allowed some to join us, but it wasn't many, just a number of claws and no more."

Skyler blinked slowly. "Blitz is not a pack?"

She growled shortly. "A pack can be beaten, can be humiliated, taken over, erased; an idea can't."

"How did you do it all then?" her capturer asked with untainted curiosity, like a hatchling. Mater Fulgur realised that she never even asked for his name, but doing so now would break the timing of the story.

"We all knew what needed to be done for our species, and all the dragons, to prosper. Everyone just followed the advice of the ones that managed to persuade them, and we decided on directions mostly by consensus, unless no one was interested enough; then we just just followed whoever was leading without question."

Her capturer trilled.

"No hierarchy?"

She looked at him incredulously.

"Since when have our kind had any form of hierarchy? We never gathered in packs or submitted to alphas. Why would we start then?"

The capturer hesitated, and Scab instead spoke for him.

"He was raised in a pack of dragons after his parents were..."

Mater-Fulgur crooned sympathetically before continuing, while noting that the capturer had seemingly no issue with Scab, and even told him his life story, nor did he have an issue with him sharing it, they seemed to be friends.

"We just gather in groups of family and friends, rarely more than... a number of limbs, and even that rarely, with no alpha. Blitz is just multiple such groups working together for a common purpose."

He hummed, visibly having difficulty comprehending the idea, but didn't interrupt further.

"It all sounds very believable and all, but didn't humans try to counteract you?"

She giggled a little and shook her head.

"What could they do? Chase us? Us? The fastest of dragons? Granted, they tried, and failed. Others tried to defend small-wooden-nests, but it left their big-stony-nests much easier to destroy, and if they tried to defend both, they were just spread too thin to defend anywhere effectively. Some places were too tough to be worth fighting through though, and big-stony-nests on the coasts were able to feed themselves by fishing, but not many, and humans were also fighting among themselves."

It was Skyler's turn to ask a question, with one squinted eye, twisted nose, and left ear raised.

"Fighting between themselves while Blitz was hunting them?"

Mater-Fulgur snickered.

"I guess they were too short-sighted to cooperate and instead fought over what was left in our wake. It helped our cause anyway, so I don't question it too much."

Moonlight hummed from the opposite end of the circle of bound dragons.

"I think it is a key question; how did you learn to make... weird human things?"

The last word was said with a grumble, and she actually needed to stop this time to think.

"Well, we searched the destroyed big-stony-nests and found places where we thought humans were making those, but...I never paid much attention to it. Still, some of our kind were keen to shuffle through the remains, and after some time they started making some things when we gathered to chat and play for the rest of the night and sleep during the day."

"So you are constantly on the move, hunting exposed humans, and taking what was theirs as yours," Scab summarised.

Before they could continue, a human interrupted them, specifically, the one that claimed her, by taking a leash from the pole and tugging at it. She grumbled, but followed, albeit slowly enough to force it to tug at it all the time. Her eyes were filled with so much resentment, that it flinched when looking back at her, yet still managed an angry bark.

Instead of speeding up, she slowed very slightly, and the human growled pathetically, but carried on without trying anything until they reached their destination.

A small gathering of humans was there, as well as a few of her kind standing guard, as always. Mater-Fulgur was told to sit and then to bow, she begrudgingly performed all the orders, and was soon rewarded with removal of the muzzle. She flexed her jaws, finally freed from the tight leathery clutches, at least for the time being.

The dragoness wasn't restrained again, instead she was led on a leash, this time without a particular target it seemed, only around the patch of trees they had hidden in after this day's flight.

It took her some time; humans had very flat faces and outright opposite expressions, but eventually she realised that the one claiming her, baring its teeth, wasn't showing anger, but happiness, gloating.

That crossed the line.

She pulled the leash taut, and the human stumbled, nearly falling over because of its hilariously imbalanced form. It stared at her, and she stared back.

The contest was interrupted by a remark from a nearby human, which made the one claiming her snap at it before tugging on the leash harder, this time with enough force to constrict the collar uncomfortably around her neck. Not wanting to take more chances than needed, she walked up to it, and after it sent her a glare she assumed was suspicious or angry, or something along those lines, it started walking again, and she with it, just fast enough to let the leash hang loose between her and it.

The short trip to the poles went in silence between them, and only when they reached them did the human start growling quietly. It was frustrated, most likely with her behaviour.

Its growls turned into exclamations, and then into yells that rang in her ears. Mater-Fulgur didn't make a sound, only raised her tail, holding it to the right of her head, unfolding one tail-fin fully, and glaring.

That shut up the human fast. Afterwards, it only grumbled to itself while leashing her and going to its place to sleep.

"How did you do this? They never let us sleep without those things before we are with them for a full moon-circle and obey without question," said Pitch. She temporarily ignored who said this and responded, "I don't know." But she knew, and her mind refused to acknowledge it.