Chapter 2: Out of the Shadows

The cove was quiet, apart from the distant rustling of trees and the occasional chatter of nocturnal animals. Toothless had been in a deep sleep for several hours and showed no sign of waking, as dawn was still a good way off. The pond glittered with waves of light as the aurora borealis danced across the sky, like strokes of a painting conjured up by the hand of the gods. A tapestry of color reflected off the surface, bathing the cove in warm hues without a sound, as the Night Fury continued to sleep uninterrupted.

The bright array of colors was suddenly interrupted as a dark shadow, with a small streak of sapphire, passed over the surface. A dragon, black as night, circled the cove, finally landing a short distance away from Toothless without so much as a rustle of grass. The only perceptible sound was a sigh of relief, as the mysterious dragon had clearly found what they were looking for. Quietly approaching the slumbering Alpha dragon, the visitor leaned back on all fours and stood there awkwardly in silence, debating their next course of action. Finally, after seemingly mustering up the courage, the dragon whispered, "Hey, wake up."

No response. Toothless was out cold.

"Please wake up, I really need to talk to you!" the dragon pleaded, a hint of urgency in its voice.

Nothing.

Something cold and pointy prodded the side of Toothless's neck, not violently but definitely hard enough to get his attention. The Alpha jolted awake in a panic, firing off a blast of plasma in the direction the unwelcome interruption had come from. A shriek of surprise cut across the silent night as the shot met with air, flying to the opposite wall of the cove and exploding in a shower of rocky fragments. Whoever had stirred Toothless awake had managed to leap behind one of the large boulders that lined the far edges of the cove, their stealth now nonexistent as the Night Fury seethed with anger. Of all the things I didn't need… Toothless knew keeping this cove a secret was too good to be true, but by the ancestors, he would have words with whoever needed so desperately to wake him up. He bared his teeth, wings raised in a clear message of attack.

"Come out right now!"

"Only if you promise not to shoot me! Geez, relax, jumpy…" A faint curse could be heard uttered from behind the rock.

Toothless snapped back, "Hey, you're the one who woke me, and no one's supposed to know about this place!"

"I'm waiting…"

"Fine, I promise. Come on out."

The dark figure stepped out into the moonlight, and Toothless's expression quickly went from irritation to complete shock. The coal-black dragon was slightly smaller than him, with a more slender build and fewer spines. But as the visitor fully emerged to stand in front of him, Toothless wondered if his eyes were playing a trick on him. Another Night Fury stood before him, virtually identical apart from the bright sapphire irises that made contact with his own forest-green eyes. Not only that, but as he took in the scent of his intrusive guest, an unfamiliar feeling crept into his chest: a female.

Toothless was quickly snapped out of his shock as the young female verbally launched into him, "You almost hit me! I've been waiting for a chance to talk to you in private for days, and this is the welcome I get? I even tried to wake you nicely. I came all this way, and you're the first Night Fury I've seen in months, and this is what I get for my trouble…"

The young Alpha blinked. First Night Fury? Months? Then he started. "Wait, hold on. Days? How long have you been following me? Who even are you?!"

The blue-eyed dragon looked at the ground sheepishly. "I got here four days ago."

"And you didn't think to come find me while I was awake?! If you needed to talk so badly, you could've said something other than waiting to poke me in my sleep!" he exclaimed, lowering his wings from their stance of fight-or-flight.

The newcomer's irritation was quickly replaced by embarrassment. "Well, you looked really busy, and I'm not just dropping into a human village! What's the big deal? You look like I'm the first Night Fury you've ever seen—"

"You are!" Toothless interrupted, and her rebuttal died out. The words hung in the air between them, and he couldn't shake the strange mixture of awkwardness and desperation that sat in his stomach. He had imagined a moment like this for ages, a chance for answers, but was now wholly unprepared for it.

Her eyes widened in embarrassment. "Oh…I didn't…I'm sorry! I mean, not even your parents?"

Toothless shook his head. Years of servitude to the Red Death had taken their toll, and he couldn't even remember the last time he had been able to conjure up clear memories of family. Blurred shapes, voices, but never a clear picture.

The other Night Fury stood silently for a moment before clearing her throat. "Forgive me," she begged. "I didn't mean to pry. My name's Ash, by the way."

"Toothless. Nice to meet you." He received a strange look from the female, like she was holding back a laugh. "I didn't choose it," he started. "It's just…grown on me, that's all."

Ash let out a giggle. "I'll take your word for it."

The growing list of questions that had been accruing in Toothless's head came back to the forefront. "You said you haven't seen another Night Fury in months? How far have you flown to find this place?" he questioned.

Taking a moment to answer, Ash replied, "Well, it's probably around two weeks of flying south by southeast to get here, but I didn't take a straight shot! I spent a lot of time searching for…well, it's a long story…"

"We've got time before dawn. I'll listen." Curling back up in his makeshift bed, Toothless eyed Ash with an inquisitive look. "C'mon, spill. You said you needed to talk to me, but I need details."

Ash took a moment, then faintly scorched the earth in front of her with a tongue of fire. Making herself comfortable, she began to talk. "I come from an archipelago called Mystholm. You probably haven't heard of it. Humans don't live close, and those that do steer clear of it. It has a reputation for being…well, dangerous. That's where Night Furies are from! There aren't a lot of us, though, and we're divided up into three colonies, or tribes." Ash took a moment to breathe, aimlessly drawing circles in the dirt with a paw. "The colonies don't get along well. I'm from an island called Aylan, where we try to avoid trouble with outsiders as much as possible. The Night Furies on Seregon don't like outsiders either, but they'd prefer to wipe out anything that doesn't have black scales. And then there's the Watchers…" She paused, a hint of both displeasure and admiration in her voice. "They have an island, too, but they prefer to fly as a pack for long stretches, fighting so-called oppressors and dragon hunters and whatnot."

Toothless squinted, confused. "Oppressors? What do you mean?"

"Some Night Furies say they roam the skies searching for places where dragons, or even humans, are tyrannized. Then they destroy the place and set them free. No one's really sure why, or who leads them. Just that if you want to find and fight bad people, you can join them. It sounds kinda cool, except they're the whole reason I'm here!" Ash exclaimed, burying her face in her paws in frustration. "Apparently, they went and destroyed some huge human city, and now a fleet of dragon hunters might be trying to find out where they came from. If they think to enter Mystholm, we'll get discovered, and then there could be a war!"

Toothless thought hard. His own experience with dragon hunters had proven dangerous and costly, especially with a clever leader like Viggo Grimborn had been. But against a few colonies of Night Furies? "Surely they couldn't pose that much of a threat to all of you? Even if they did find you, that seems unlikely."

Ash groaned. "Maybe all together, but I already told you we're divided! My island won't agree to take the fight to the humans, Seregon refuses to ally with us and would probably provoke the humans more, and no one knows what the Watchers would do! They could just leave and find somewhere else while the rest of us get picked off. All the hunters have to do is pick us off slowly!" Ash looked increasingly nervous. "And we can't just leave. Some of us are too proud, and moving hatchlings in a large group is dangerous!"

"This is a stretch, but there are plenty of islands up here that are uninhabited," Toothless countered, "and most of the humans around here are peaceful. If it was that dire, there are plenty of places to go."

"You're right, but good luck convincing my people to do that," Ash said dryly. "It's mostly Seregon. They won't move, they won't listen, they prefer to stand and fight. They have…stubbornness issues." She continued tracing shapes in the dirt, which looked to Toothless like an attempt to calm her nerves. "My elder used to tell me stories, you know. Of a time a century ago when Night Furies were united in one nest. We used to live together, she said, and ruled the whole of Mystholm like our own kingdom. We even had a king, the strongest Night Fury of them all!" She gazed off into the distance, taking in the spectrum of color that had continued to cover the pond. "And look at us now: broken up, too proud to just sit down and decide what to do. New eggs don't happen very often, and we're smart, but that doesn't make us invincible. There are only a couple hundred of us in each group, maybe a thousand or two total. If we start a war with humans, it's all gone! That's why I left."

A moment of silence passed as Toothless attempted to process all the information he had been given. "I thought if I could find other dragons to help us, we wouldn't be so vulnerable. Except there aren't a whole lot of large nests between here and Mystholm, mostly empty rock and sea…" Ash trailed off, deep in thought, until she picked back up brightly. "…until I met some Changewings forming a nest on an island about a week south. They told me they had left a place called Berk. They asked where I was headed, and when I mentioned I was looking for help, they said there was apparently a Night Fury here! An Alpha dragon, no less."

"Which led you to me," Toothless concluded. "So let me get this straight. You want to stop a potential dragon hunter invasion, but the other Night Furies won't band together to save themselves. And you want me to do what, exactly?"

"I want you to come back with me. The other Night Furies will only accept help from one of their own, and you might be able to negotiate as an outsider since there's no bad blood with you." Ash looked at Toothless firmly. "And maybe we can get you some answers about where you come from! Some elders have lived a long time and have a good memory; maybe they could help you."

Toothless sighed. Here was an opportunity he could not pass up, yet now that it was here he found himself fearing to leave Berk, especially Hiccup. "If I choose to go, I'd be leaving a lot behind. I have friends here, and the Alpha can't just leave for too long before things start to go south."

"I'm not asking you to stay! I mean…if you wanted to…" Ash sputtered, "…but I'm afraid, and I *need* to do something about this! People thought I was overreacting and called me crazy for leaving, but we aren't safe!"

Taking a moment to think, Toothless got up and moved to the pond. This conversation had him starved. As he scouted for a potential meal, he questioned again. "I still don't understand the whole deal with these different nests. How can there be that much bad blood between them? They can't be that different."

"Yes, they can," Ash countered, "but it goes beyond location. There's…well…"

Silence.

"C'mon, you can tell me."

"There's magic involved."

One could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. Toothless wasn't sure exactly what he expected to hear, but that definitely wasn't it.

"Magic."

Ash looked distraught. "Please don't laugh…"

"I won't, but forgive me if I'm skeptical. Magic? Really?"

Ash relaxed. "Yes, magic. At least that's the most accurate word I can use to describe it. I told you Mystholm has a reputation for being dangerous, but it also has one for potential magical power. The stories my elder told me also spoke of how older Night Furies discovered some magical artifacts, and it caused a giant war called the Cataclysm. That's what apparently split us up." Ash looked at Toothless's deadpan expression. "I'm not making this up! Magic is a real thing, or at least there's some of it there."

"Define 'some of it,'" Toothless inquired.

"Well, I've only ever seen one magical artifact," Ash admitted. "It's on Aylan. We call it a dragonstone. Our island is teeming with life, and it probably has something to do with the stone's power. We bring our injured to it, and their ailments are healed! It doesn't really do anything more than that, to be honest." Stretching, Ash came to join Toothless at the pond's edge. "No one knows if the Watchers have any, but the important part is that Seregon has none. They see our stone as an affront, a symbol that makes us better than them. They've attacked us over the years to destroy it, but it's never even been damaged. But our living people have been."

Taking a break to snap up a fish, Ash quickly devoured it before continuing. "I had hoped that I would find one to give to them; maybe that could help us unite. But that was wishful thinking. I don't know how to convince everyone to band together when we've been fighting each other for years, and the Night Furies that don't fight each other run off to join the Watchers and fight others instead!"

The blue-eyed dragon turned, making direct eye contact with Toothless. "I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I don't even know if it's my place to do anything! But I'm doing something! I can't sit around while hunters come for us all!"

"Will you help or not?"

The Alpha was silent. He wasn't sure if there was anything he could do, if he could convince these Night Furies to join together even if he was one of them. At the very least, maybe there was a way to throw the dragon hunters off the trail, if they were even close to finding Mystholm at all. But if the threat was as big as Ash believed, something had to be done. And the chance at exploring a new land was extremely tempting, possibly once in a lifetime. This could change everything, and perhaps this was also a sign to convince Toothless that Berk could survive without him for a short while.

"I'll try."

Ash's eyes widened, and before Toothless knew it, she rammed into him with a burst of speed, causing the larger dragon to stumble back a few steps. "Thank you! You can't imagine how relieved I am!" she exclaimed, nuzzling Toothless's head with her own.

Toothless stiffened but found himself relaxing to her touch. After all she had shared, he could imagine quite a lot.

Several Hours Later…

"So let me break this all down. You just met another Night Fury—a girl—the first that you or any of us have seen in recent memory. And the first thing she does is ask you to take a long journey to convince a bunch of feuding Night Furies to band together to prevent a human attack that they might have caused, all in the name of keeping their home hidden and preventing their extinction. Oh, and the place you're going has magic there, apparently."

"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up," Toothless replied.

Having called his closest dragon friends to the arena that afternoon, the Alpha wasn't sure what he expected their reactions to be. Hookfang—ever blunt—had summed up his story with a skeptical tone. Stormfly had a look of suspicion in her eyes. The Zippleback twins were fighting in the background, as usual. Meatlug was listening intently, as was Cloudjumper, although to human eyes, he would appear asleep, lounging on the rocky outcropping above the main pit. Ash had elected to remain in the cove, and Toothless had agreed to return that evening for them to get on their way. But he couldn't drop off the face of Berk, not without informing those closest to him.

"I'm so happy for you! I'm sure you've wanted a Night Fury to come into your life for some time, even if the circumstances are a bit weird," Meatlug praised, earning a warm smile from Toothless. Ever the gentle heart, he thought.

"I'm happy for you, too, but this still seems a little strange," Stormfly remarked. "Anyone else find it weird that there are so few Night Furies in this new place, despite it being virtually unknown to everyone else? And for all this time, too."

"Well, not every dragon lays eggs as often as others; Stealth dragons, even less so," Meatlug countered. "They could be having mating problems if they're split up like Ash said."

"And don't forget the Cataclysm! The all-devouring apocalyptic event recited by their elders! The calamity of the ages that split the kingdom!" Barf shouted, startling the group before he resumed attempting to strangle Belch.

Hookfang snarled, "Of course, *that's* the only part you listened to! Save your drama for telling hatchlings a story."

"What if he ain't being dramatic?" said Belch as he twisted his neck free of his conjoined twin. "Giant war equals endangered species, don't you think? Especially if they fought over these magic stones or whatever."

"You actually think this place has magic?" the Nadder prodded again.

Hookfang laughed, but his expression was sober. "Humans fool around with their gods and magic all the time, even if they're not real. Doesn't mean dragons didn't find something that actually is, especially if Mystholm is so secret."

"Cloudjumper, you've been quiet. Speak up. We all want to hear your thoughts," Toothless prompted from overhead.

Four wings unfolded as the senior dragon climbed down to their level like an oversized bat. Although their first meeting had been full of fury, Toothless had come to rely a great deal on the Stormcutter's wisdom.

"The tale is somewhat strange, to be sure, maybe even far-fetched…but we are looking for proof in the story when the evidence is in the storyteller. Ash traveled all this way asking for your help when there are apparently no others to assist her. We know Night Furies are exceptionally rare and exceptionally prized by dragon hunters. And the fact that little is known about Mystholm does more to confirm their secrecy than discount it. As for their inner conflict, why should Night Furies be any different than other dragons, or humans, for that matter? Pride, greed, and anger infect all who think and feel. And if they continue to fight each other while still reeling from a terrible tragedy—one with great loss of life—then they compound their own danger."

He gave Toothless a long look. "The question isn't whether or not her story is completely true. Rather, do you think this journey will provide you with what you seek? If the magic or the dragon hunter army turns out to be overstated, but the Night Furies are there, you will still greatly benefit from the journey as someone who—up until last night—believed you were one of the last of your kind. And I think you've already made up your mind."

The Night Fury looked down; he had, indeed. "I've already decided to go. But I couldn't leave without explaining where I'm going. And I need to ask you all for a favor."

"You could just command it, you know," Hookfang stated.

"You know I hate doing that!" Toothless exclaimed. "You all are my closest friends, and I know I haven't been in the best of moods lately. I didn't ask for all the responsibility of being Alpha, but the nest and the village mean everything to me, as they do to you! I'm counting on all of you to keep the peace for however long I'm gone. I'm putting Cloudjumper officially in charge, but he can't do it by himself. Please."

"Of course!" Meatlug chirped.

"Count me in," the twins added.

"Just as long as you come back in one piece," Hookfang grumbled.

Stormfly nodded in agreement, although her eyes still betrayed a hint of concern. "What are you going to do about Hiccup?"

"I'm figuring that out."

Author's Note: Apparently there's not a notes section for these after all, still getting used to this. I went back to work so it takes me a bit to get chapters done, but the experience is much more engaging than I remember. Or maybe my grasp of dialogue is better, one of the two. Anyway, it looks like the story's finally going somewhere, enjoy!

Nerdy Vocab:

Aylan - derived from ayla, a Turkish name associated with moons or moonlight.

Seregon - Sindarin for "blood of stone"

Mystholm - My own invention, Mystic Isles