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A dark figure swept across the small isle the others called 'Berk', and the dragon spiraled down onto the sandy banks of a closed off cove, nothing but a shadow in the pitch black of the night. Its tail swished in the sand as it let its wings droop. Three days of flying had its head low. It had smelled the humans on the far side of the island but the sent was mingled with that of other dragons. Hopefully both species were too busy fighting each other to find the other dragon. It used the last of its strength to leap up and drop its tail over a branch. The black dragon snapped its wings around itself like a cocoon and slowly drifted into an uneasy sleep just as the first hints of sunlight started to streak the sky...

Toothless lifted his head, suddenly awake from his pleasant dreams. A shift in the breeze had caused a draft in the room with an extremely faint scent that barely even touched his nose. He didn't recognize it, it was different, not a normal visitor of the island, and as he tried to lay back down to sleep he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something new has made it's way onto the island of Berk, and that something had the power to change his life forever...

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He heard wind through his ears, legs tucked up against his body while his wings beat, sending him and his human forward and spurring them faster. His hearing was impeccable, even as he swiftly flew, diving and turning with the grace of the wind itself. He could pick up the squabbling of the two idiot twin humans, the unnoticed sarcastic remarks of Hookfang while Snotlout continued to try and give the sheep to Ruffnut, Astrid spurring Stormfly onward, the sound of the roaring crowd of vikings.

Over the sounds, he picked up one more. A horn sounding. That was for the black sheep. Worth more points than the others that the twins had gathered so far thanks to Snotlout and Fishlegs' mooning over Ruff. On his back he felt Hiccup lean down beside his ears to talk to him.

"What do you say we try this again, Bud?" Almost immediately Toothless's mood dimmed and he made a grumbling noise of complaint. Did he have to do that right now? They could win this dragon race first, in his opinion, not tarnish his reputation and make Hiccup more of an embarrassment. "Oh come on, we got this!"

He felt Hiccup shift his prosthetic their fin's mechanism and heard the click as it was locked in place. Toothless shook himself, still grumbling quietly though at a frequency that the human wouldn't hear it, the tone he usually used to talk with other dragons besides chitters and body language.

He felt a weight lift off his back as Hiccup jumped off right as the sheep was launched and Toothless managed to swerve to the side as Stormfly and Astrid shot past him, Stormfly's talons' outstretched for the poor animal.

"Too slow Toothless!" He heard the nadder click cheerily while the sheep made a distressed 'bahhh' as it was caught in her claws.

"You're welcome!" He roared after her, beating his wings to try and gain some more altitude. He watched Hiccup close his arms from where he was above in a mock way of the clean dives Toothless often made. Personally, Toothless saw no point in this flying mechanism. Why bother with a useless pile of sticks and fabric when he had him? But Hiccup was, unfortunately, rather adventurous. Toothless loved exploring with his human companion, sure. And he knew Hiccup could make amazing things, his fake tail fin, for example. His flaming sword. Canisters of zippleback gas. But these wings? They were not any of those things.

Hiccup missed Stormfly entirely, having aimed to land on her back, swing down, and take the sheep before jumping back to Toothless, and shot past her right wing. Toothless roared, trying to beat his wings and go faster in order to catch up with his friend but Hiccup was falling faster than Toothless's locked tail would let him. Narrowing his eyes against the wind, the night fury closed his wings in, shifting to just dive straight down so he'd be at least able to catch Hiccup to shield him from the fall.

At the last second he opened his wings a little in order to grab Hiccup then tucked himself all the way around the small creature as they started crashing into the woods, now far, far off course. He could feel tree branches slapping at his wings and back and the top of his head but ignored it. His scales may seem thin but they happened to be quite strong. He'd manage. The impact of the ground was much worse, slamming into him like a crash with another dragon mid-flight as he skidded to a stop in the dirt and grass.

Toothless grumbled and got up to whack Hiccup with his tail as he un-tucked himself and got up, shaking his wings and snorting as the human stood up. His idiot of a human had tried his 'wings' during a dragon race, at had gone wrong, obviously, like every other time. He wouldn't be hearing the end of this from Stormfly. Distantly he could hear the cheering of Vikings and dragons as Astrid slammed the black sheep into her net, taking the game. Hiccup sat up a few steps away brushing the leaves and twigs off himself.

"Woohoo am I right but?" Hiccup asked standing up and shaking some forest brush off his head that had managed to get through Toothless's closed wings. Toothless was getting ready to smack Hiccup down again when a distant roar echoed through the trees...

———

Hiccup shook his head to get the grass and leaves and dirt out of his hair. He was just about to get back onto his dragon when he saw Toothless freeze, ears vibrating as if he had heard something strange.

"...Toothless.." Hiccup said cautiously, slowly taking a step toward his night fury. "What is it bud?" Hiccup asked, gently holding his hand palm out, toward Toothless. The night fury wasn't reacting, staying perfectly still as he lifted himself to his hind legs, head up as if to listen more. The night fury's tail twitched as he let himself drop back down to the ground with a quiet snort.

"What was that, Bud—" Suddenly he dropped his head and pushed Hiccup into his saddle, his prosthetic leg clicked into the mechanism "oh no" was all he had time to say, or even think, before he was cut off by Toothless launching into the air at top speed flying fast, bee lining right to the cove where they had first met. He dropped down just out of sight of the glittering water.

"I think you just hit a new record there, Bud.." Hiccup said very faintly. Dazed. Toothless gargled something in response and quietly made his way through the ferns to the edge of the cliff. Hiccup looked down and gasped as he saw what was beside the water.

There in the open stood a sleek black dragon, and though the light was hiding most of the dragon, he could still make out the base shape of the dragon, and its bright crystal blue eyes. It was a little smaller than Toothless but shared the small ridges down its back and on the back of its legs instead like Toothless. But its face was contorted in a snarl, its head tilted to the sky. That's when Hiccup saw what the dragon was standing on ground flattened and scorched with spiraling waves. The mark of a Typhoomerang.

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The night fury roared as a shadow flickered over the sun. Toothless growled, and Hiccup looked up to see a massive red typhoomerang circling overhead, it stopped to snarl at the black dragon, roaring out a pillar of flame at the night fury. As soon as the fire cleared the fury retaliated, shooting plasma at the stoker dragon's head. It dived, swooping down to grab its prey. Little too late did Hiccup realize he was still in the saddle with his leg still attached. Toothless leaped into the sky quickly and dived as well, knocking the typhoomerang off coarse and causing it to spiral to the side instead.

But the typhoomerang was righting itself almost immediately, now angrier than ever. It beat its wings, making a powerful force of wind right at Toothless and Hiccup. Toothless flapped his own wings furiously to stay in the air. He roared and spat a fireball at the red dragon, hitting it right in the underbelly. It screeched with fury, hissing more fire out at Hiccup and Toothless. Typhoomerang fire was like no other, hollow right down the middle like a tornado. All Hiccup had to do was duck down to avoid getting his hair singed off. Behind him he heard the sound of something catching on fire, followed by a loud splintering crack and a pained roar. Toothless twisted to look behind him, the other night fury had a wing trapped under a fallen branch from a still burning tree that had been caught by the fire instead. The fury was screeching and twisting, slamming its tail into the ground and hissing. With Hiccup and Toothless momentarily distracted, it gave the typhoomerang a chance. And it took it without hesitation.

The colossal dragon flipped in the air, slamming Toothless and Hiccup out of the sky and crashing into the ground with its tail. The typhoomerang trumpeted its success with a loud roar, sending a flock of terrible terrors nearby scattering into the clouds. Toothless blearily lifted his head, his eyes half open. He grumbled, his head dropping down again.

"Toothless, uh, now might be a good time to get up..!" Hiccup said frantically, looking at the sky. The typhoomerang was flying up, gaining altitude to dive down on them. Readying the final blow. It was only when the other night fury roared something at him, its face still in a half angry half painful snarl, that Toothless looked up and saw the typhoomerang's silhouette. He pulled himself up, and Hiccup could see the determination in his eyes. Toothless looked straight up and reared up onto his back legs, roaring up at their opponent. The typhoomerang had already started to dive down, gaining speed every second it was in the air and aiming right towards them.

Toothless opened his mouth, roaring up to it a second time. His mouth lit up and he fired a multi-shot of his plasma blast. Three shots right up to the typhoomerang's face. One missed entirely, another blasted into the very edge tip of the dragons folded wings. But the last one hit its mark. The blast struck the massive dragon right in the eyes. The typhoomerang opened its wings, screaming while it was launched back into the air out of the dive as the leathery wing membrane was caught in the wind.

Its eyes still closed it and it's mouth still roaring in anger, it wheeled away in the air, clearly leaving in order to find different, less difficult prey, soon become nothing but a spec in the distance getting smaller and smaller. Toothless dropped back down onto all four limbs once more and turned to face the new dragon, his pupils rounding a little as he purred curiously, tilting his head.

"Hey there" Hiccup said gently, slowly getting off the saddle, holding out his hand carefully. The fury snarled as he tried to take a step forward and Toothless had just enough time to spread his wing and cover Hiccup as the black dragon shot a plasma blast at Hiccup. Toothless growled a warning to the sleek dragon before looking back to check if Hiccup was ok. "We need to get that branch off her wing..." Hiccup muttered, not at all discouraged by the wild dragon's hostile behavior. Guess I'm getting my hopes up he thought, after saying 'her', though Toothless still purred in agreement and folded his wing back so Hiccup was once again open to see the other night fury. Another night fury! He allowed himself a small mental exclamation, feeling the actual shock of it a second, more real time. He isn't the only one!

But the night fury was ready. Its mouth was opened, though not lighting up with the sure signs of a plasma blast. Instead a small dart about the size of Hiccup's finger nail whistled out toward Hiccup, going fast. Too fast. Toothless didn't have enough time to spread his wing to shield him and Hiccup didn't quite have enough time to get out of the way before the little ivory dart hit Hiccup right in the neck.

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The dart didn't seem to do anything at first, and Hiccup picked it out of his skin easily, only the smallest little hint of blood was on the very tip. It was an ivory colour, and rather ordinary-looking, that was until Hiccup spotted the almost-black, purple, and faintly glittering liquid leaking out of the tip. That's when Hiccup started to feel strange. He was starting to get dizzy and a little disoriented. Hiccup tried to reach out for Toothless, his voice slurred as he said something like; "Toothless.. whazgoin'on bud.." his vision was getting affected too, warped as everything started to get blurry.

All the shadows and light dancing around, making the dizziness even worse. He stumbled and fell backward onto the ground. It felt much better laying down. Feeling anchored onto something solid that didn't spin around. Distantly he heard Toothless roar. Wait. Distantly? Wasn't Toothless right beside him? Also. How did the other night fury shoot a dart? Was it a different variant somehow, or maybe this was a certain trait only a few of them had or... something? Toothless had never shown any kind of dart related ability. Perhaps... perhaps this was something he could think about later. He was getting tired, like stones weighed down every one of his limbs.

Maybe he could sleep. Maybe that would make the dark mist inside his brain go away. Yes. Sleep sounded good. And that was the Last thought that flickered through his head before he gave in to the black fog that slowly crept into every corner of his brain and every thought and emotion and every bone, muscle, and limb. Hiccup closed his eyes that were already drooping, and then he was gone. Into a world beyond dreams...

———

"What did you do to him!" Toothless roared at the she-fury that was grounded before him, watching Hiccups limp body on the ground through slitted blue eyes. She didn't answer and Toothless took a step towards her. Immediately her head snapped towards him and she growled a warning.

"Your pet will be fine if that's what you're asking." She hissed as Toothless took a step back. He decided that it should probably be in his best interests to stay on this new fury's good side considering she had shot hiccup with who knows what simply for getting off his saddle.

He knew it wasn't quite her fault, well, ok, yes it was, but he couldn't bring himself to blame her. He would probably have done the same thing before he had met Hiccup. She was trapped and like any other wild dragon, she would react like a cornered animal. She was glaring at Hiccup's body and Toothless could see that she was internally debating something. She seemed to sense him staring and looked back at him, he shook his head and snorted. You don't know her Toothless thought at himself best to take this slowly ...but she's another night fury.. I'm not the last one... a small hopeful voice in the back of his head wheedled.

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry, but I need to get nearer if you want to get that branch off your wing." Toothless said in a softer voice after she curled her lip when he tried to take a step towards her again.

"I don't. need. help!" She hissed, her face scrunching while she covered another pained roar as she tugged at her wing. Toothless gave her a dubious look and she shot another glare at him. She twisted and shot a plasma blast, Toothless reaching to cover Hiccup with his wing while using the other to cover his own head from the debris of splintered wood that was the result of her fire.

He peaked over the edge of his wing, the smoke was clearing and there were sharp little splinters all over the ground. But standing before him, her head high and her wings in regal arches half open above her, was the she-fury. Her hard icy eyes were open, her pupils were sharp slits and her eyes glittered with danger. And fear. Toothless noticed curiously, tilting his head slightly when he spotted it. He didn't have the time to try and look at it more intently though, was she scared of him or Hiccup? Was it something else? Because she launched herself into the air, intending to fly far and fast by the looks of it. But as she beat her wings to leave something went wrong. As she was over the cove her right wing, the one that had been trapped under the branch, crumpled inward at an unnatural angle.

She screeched and plummeted down towards the water, and Toothless watched with horror as she disappeared below the calm tiny waves in a large splash. For what seemed like the longest time there was nothing but the ripples on the water's surface. He stared at the cove with wide eyes, stunned for a moment and not sure of what he could do, when suddenly her head broke the surface. She gasped and sputtered, her wings and tail slapping the surface wildly and her eyes wide again with even more of that fear he had just glimpsed.

It took Toothless a long minute to realize that her right wing was still not quite right. It was automatically flinching and pulling back... something was wrong, and Toothless realized three things at once; her right wing was broken from the tree branch, Meaning that she wouldn't be able to fly. And, she was panicking, not quite thinking about what was going on, so she wouldn't be able to swim to the shore, and with her using up her energy the way she was in her panic... she was going to drown.

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Toothless had to act fast. Looking around his eyes landed on Hiccup, laying on the ground unconscious. With lack of a better idea on what to do, he grabbed the back of Hiccups' dragon armor/"flight suit" and with the help of his wings and a lot of twisting and shifting he got Hiccup laying on his back. Toothless had to carefully shifted back and forth for a moment before he heard the familiar click of Hiccups' leg connecting with the mechanism of his tail.

He didn't waste much more time, launching into the air and diving down once he was over where the she-fury was still thrashing around in the water. He reached with his front claws and grabbed her shoulders where her wings met her front legs and beat his wings heavily to lift them both into the air properly.

To his surprise, she didn't struggle at all. Didn't fight didn't hiss, just went limp. When he looked down to try and see her face she was looking down with an expression he couldn't quite place. Sad, maybe. He made it across to the other side of the cove and, as gently as he could, dropped her into the beach before landing a couple paces away.

She blinked once she was set down and shot him a curious, almost suspicious expression while she stood and shook herself out to discard remaining water droplets and sand from the beach, wincing and looking to one of her wings. The one, he remembered, that had looked very wrong when she had tried to fly away.

"I thought you were going to bring me back to the humans." She sniffed cautiously after a moment, eyeing him warily while folding her wings close to her side and tipping her head. Toothless wasn't exactly sure what to say to that since, actually, he probably would have if he could fly properly at the moment. Hiccup, however, was asleep, which made maneuvers and actually flying rather difficult even if his metal foot was technically in the mechanism. Looking back now, he recognized that maybe that was indeed a bad idea. She may have a broken wing, however she clearly hated humans and bring her directly to them probably wouldn't gain any trust with her. So instead of replying with words he just awkwardly tried to smile one of the gummy smiles he'd learned from Hiccup.

"HICCUP!" The other night fury looked like she might have been about to say something again but was instantly defensive again when someone's yelling reached them and Astrid and Stormfly spiraled down from the sky once spotting Toothless. The she-fury snarled almost immediately upon seeing Astrid, probably seeing the metal shoulder... things (Toothless wasn't exactly sure what they were) Astrid wore and assuming a threat. Astrid, however, appeared shocked, looking between Toothless and the new dragon when Stormfly landed by the cove.

"Is that another..." she started, hopping off of Stormfly and cautiously moving closer a step or two before noticing Hiccup was not in fact awake or in any position to answer her. Unfortunately it looked like she had brought her axe with her, and the she-fury was not taking well to the idea of an armed human. The other night fury hissed loudly, crouching as she backed away with her ears pinned and eyes narrowed, flaring her wings out as if to appear larger than she was in a defensive stance.

"Woah woah—woah..?" Toothless jumped between the new dragon and Astrid, planning to interfere before she shot another dart or something before getting immediately shocked and distracted by her wings. They were... beautiful. The undersides of them had tiny silver scales like stars, and mixes of dark blues and purples with the normal black of her scales. It was like the night sky had decided to paint her scales itself. She seemed confused as to why he was so stunned and lifted her head, tilting it at him slightly while making a face as if to say 'what's the issue here? Get out of my way'

"She isn't going to hurt you." Toothless said after blinking and forcing himself to get back on topic, referring to Astrid, flicking his wings slightly and looking back at the girl human and Stormfly, who was watching from a distance and looking very curious but not interfering. The other night fury eyed him for a very long moment before slowly folding her wings back and snorting, turning with a flick of her tail.

"Whatever. Just get those ridiculous humans out of here." She growled, walking away towards a tree that hung a little ways away from the water and started using some concentrated fire to burn a line onto the ground the same way Toothless liked to warm the ground he slept on, though she was making a very deliberate half circle that kept the tree inside and ended at the water's edge.

Toothless watched as she managed to hop up the tree to a strong enough branch where she could wrap her tail around and drop upside down. She gently wrapped her injured wing around herself, gave a warning growl when Toothless came forward enough to set one talon across her line, and wrapped the other wing around herself after he stepped back, leaving everyone in silence.

"What happened to him?" Stormfly asked when Toothless backed away from the she-fury's circle towards her and Astrid and Astrid had to move Hiccup to Stormfly's saddle so she could fly with Toothless back to the village.

"A sleeping dart, I think?" Toothless replied to his friend, tilting his head quizzically. "I don't really know, it happened really quickly."

"So she has darts? Do you have darts you never told us about?"

"Not that I know of."

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Toothless made his was down into the cove, carful not to drop the basket of fish he had nabbed from the dock on his way there. It had taken longer than before, since there hadn't been any flying, but he had a good reason enough to motivate himself anyway. The sun was just hovering over the edge of the horizon, the last sunlight until morning, and the night bugs like crickets were already starting to go. Toothless saw the other fury, she was awake now, and was watching the edge of the water with a hungry expression.

While Hiccup had been asleep, Toothless had been… thinking. About this other night fury, and how he wasn’t alone anymore, and how he needed to figure out how to get her to trust him, however his main thoughts had told him to at least wait for Hiccup to wake up before sauntering back to find some other random dragon who he had just met. Hopefully Hiccup wouldn’t be too worried about where he’d gone and come find him, possibly ruining Toothless’s ‘befriend the new fury first before slowly introducing her to humans who wouldn’t hurt her’ plan.

She lifted her head as he approached and purred a curious greeting, cautiously eyeing the area for humans when she spotted none with him. Toothless dropped the basket and nudged so it rolled across her line, remembering her warning growl from earlier before. She watched it suspiciously, and Toothless knew that she was able to smell the fresh fish, but made no move to go see what was inside it.

Toothless leaned carefully over the line, the she-fury growling low in her throat the whole time, and nipped at the leather strap that was keeping the basket's lid on. It snapped easily, spilling the delicious fish out and into view. Toothless pulled back to the right side of the line as the other night fury looked at the fish and licked her lips. She didn't take her eyes off Toothless as she sidled up to the fish, back arched. She looked from Toothless to the fish, to Toothless again.

"Go ahead, I already ate. It's all yours" He purred kindly.

"Really?" She still seemed like she didn’t trust him. Toothless nodded and blinked slowly at her.

“You’re probably hungry, and I didn’t really know what fish you liked, so I brought a bunch.”

———

She felt oddly touched by the other night fury's words. She still didn’t trust him, not if he reeked of and protected humans, but she lowered her head and started to pick through the fish anyway, finding and saving her favorites for last. She was conscious of his eyes the whole time but tried to ignore him until she had her fill and backed away, licking her lips.

"Thank you," she said quietly, and he gave her another weird gummy smile like the one from that day.

Then he lowered his head and sniffed her line. He looked up, tilting his head. He looked like he might say something, but seemed to decide against it and just wandered off. Weird was all she thought. She walked of to the other edge of her semi circle and closed her eyes, knowing if she wanted her wing to heal it would need rest. But soon she could hear the sounds of shuffling wings and something dragging in the soft sandy earth. After trying to ignore it didn't work she got up and padded over to the other side of her small area.

She watched curiously as the male night fury spun with a branch, occasionally looking up at her. After one last line was added he looked down onto his new 'art' with a nod and snort of approval. He smiled at her again, she looked down and gasped. What he had made... was her face! Her face in the dirt!

"Do.. do you like it?" He asked hesitantly "it- its uh" she ducked her head and offered him a shy smile. She had almost forgotten how to do it for more that approving of a good catch. She found herself lost for words. Which was odd, normally she'd have a formal reply to another dragon. But then again, this wasn't just another dragon was it? He was probably the last night fury (besides her, of course).

"...You don't like it" he finally said, turning and started using his tail to swipe the dirt back into place, he face a mix of embarrassment and disappointment.

"No! Don't!" She exclaimed her wing flaring open half and taking a step outside her line. He stopped, looking at her confused "I love it." She said warmly, backing back over the line. He froze, his teeth retracted and his mouth wide open like a rather adorable but very confused Venus fly trap.

"You... do?" He asked cautiously. She purred in response, feeling a little embarrassed. "Thank you... uh" the male gave her a sheepish look "what is your name again?" He asked quietly. Her face fell as she turned and looked away "sorry! I'm sorry! If it was something I said- I didn't mean to do anything wrong- m-my names' Toothless if that-"

"No. No, it's not you, it uh," She interrupted, rubbing her wings together. "I guess you could call me... huh I don't really know, everyone I meet just really calls me whatever so... I guess you could do that."

"Ok Whatever"

Toothless ducked, laughing as she swung her wing at him. "Hm" Toothless thought for a moment "how about... Echo. For your wings, they're like an echo of the stars." He offered. The she fury tilted her head thinking before agreeing slowly, and choosing not to tell him how corny that sounded.

"Yes, I like that name, you could call me that I supposed." Her birth name had been Eclipse, her best friend had given her the name Blackie, Shadow called her Twilight and her human called her Midnight. But she liked the name Echo, it sounded... nice. Like a normal name. And it was given to her by someone who wasn't close. Yet chimed the voice in the back of her head, which she immediately tried to smother.

"You said your name is Toothless," Echo said looking at him "that doesn't sound like a very 'dragon' name... is it? Sorry if that's a rude question" she amended before he could talk "it's just..."

"No, no, not at all." Toothless fluffed out his wings, "it's not a dragon given name, my human gave it to me." Echo tried to hide her astonishment,

"A human named you?" she asked, in shock. "Were you raised by those things?"

"No! It's complicated! I was shot down and lost my tail fin and a human helped me and-" he tried to explain frantically "I'm not his pet," he said a little defensively after catching her look. "I'm his partner!"

"Whatever." Echo said with a shrug, flicking her tail dismissively and looking away. "As long as the humans stay far away from me."

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Toothless started to come more frequently after that, not during the day, for he and his human 'partner' had things to do. Echo didn't mind though, she slept during the day like a normal night fury. It had been a week since he had saved her from drowning and her wing was feeling much better, she guessed that in another week she's be able to fly again. That night he came and looked rather pleased with himself.

"What's got you all cocky?" Echo asked dropping down from the branch to greet him.

"I," he said, obviously proud of himself "Got Hiccup to let me sleep all day today."

"Ooo lucky you." She purred touching noses to the male.

"And," he said "I know a way to get your wing to heal faster," Echo's ears pricked before she realized what he meant.

"No." She said taking a step back.

"But-" he started

"You know I don't like humans." Actually, that was putting it minimally. Echo hated humans, they were cruel and dangerous, with their iron weapons and chains that drew blood. They were the ones who had killed her best friend, they had killed Shadow, and even her mother too. She had once trusted a human but that ended in her blaming herself for that humans' death, leaving her hollow and cold.

"These humans are different! Please? Let me at least bring Hiccup, I trust him with my life." Toothless pleaded, Echo looked at him for a long moment. She knew that he meant it and that he just wanted to help her heal but... she took a deep breath.

"Not yet Toothless, I'm not ready to put my life in the claws of humans yet." Toothless deflated a little and sighed.

"Ok Echo, if your not ready yet I can keep him away."

"Thank you" she purred. He smiled a little and she smiled back. She padded to the water's edge right beside her line. Toothless followed and sat down beside her.

"Echo" he said after a moment of watching the water that was glittering with starlight.

"I've been wondering, what was your life like before you got..." he trailed off searching for the right word. "Broken." He finally said. Echo could tell that he meant more than her wing. She didn't like talking about her past and hesitated.

"I can go first," Toothless said gently, "I've never had anyone to tell about my past life, considering Hiccup is a human and, well, the other dragons don't really care, besides Stormfly, but she's usually off training." "I'd like that," Echo chirped quietly. Toothless smiled and began his story...

(Insert Toothless's back story here. Really. Whatever fanfiction or headcannon you like best, put it here. I leave room for ✨imagination✨ for now. If you want me to write one out I can do that too, just ask)

As Toothless finished his story Echo blinked at him, purring quietly. "Your turn" Toothless said gently bumping her side. Echo spread her left wing, staring into it's starry depths she whispered.

"I guess it's time you learned... my story..."

"I was born under an eclipse, no moon to light my hatching. And.. for night furies, hatching under an eclipse makes the dragonet... different. It gives them something that sets them apart from the others. For me it was my wings. And my darts. I mean, all females have them, we evolved them as an easy hunting mechanism if we ever have dragonets of our own, mine are just... weirdly... connected to me, maybe is the best wording.

"As I was hatched and pushed through my eggshell my mother was waiting, she pulled me into her wings and looked me up and down for anything wrong with me. When at last she saw my wings she gasped, "oh they're beautiful..." she brought me back to the small colony that was left of us.

"Is she alright?" A night fury, my mother's sister I found out later, asked worriedly.

"She's wonderful!" My mother announced, showing me to her sister. "There there, little one." She murmured as I cried from being set away from her warmth.

"Oh she is wonderful!" My mother's sister cried happily, after looking at my wings. "What are you going to name her Dawn?" Dawn, my mother, looked down at me, her ocean blue eyes glowing with pride and love.

"I'm not sure, Flicker, how about you name her." Flicker fluffed out her wings and smiled,

"I know what her name should be." She said after looking up at the sky.

"Eclipse." And that was my first name, my first life. The discovery of my darts was when I was being taught how to hunt. But none of the other night furies cared. I was having a full life, a happy life... until the humans came. They swept onto our island intending to hunt the last of us down, I had just barely learned how to fly when we were forced to flee. Only four of us remained, and we scattered, I was just a small dragonet and I was left to fend for myself, with nothing but the memories of my mother being dragged down from the sky with chains and the light leaving her eyes as a human shot her heart with a poisoned arrow.

"After a few months I had done some growing up, both physically, and mentally. I had to learn how to hunt on my own, and I became one of the best. Along with teaching myself to fly and to save energy. I thought I was all alone until I bumped into another fury. But she wasn't a night fury, she was white and glittering, a light fury. Her name was Luna and she brought me back to her home, where her kind was forced to flee to before any humans found them and used them as a target like they did with night furies.

"It turned out, that most of the light furies are vein and focused mostly on themselves. Luna and her friend Stardust were some of the only good ones. Most of the light furies saw me as a threat to their beauty charade. One look at me alone was enough to have them dislike me, looking at my wings made them down right spitting mad. 'Oh so you think you can just walk in here and be the best?' 'What happened to you did you smack into a star on your way here?' 'It looks like you're in the wrong place, aren't all of you supposed to be dead?' To name some of the cruel teasing.

"Luna could tell that the name Eclipse brought back too many memories for me to handle, so she called me Blackie, and the name just kind of... stuck. She was the best friend I could have asked for. Stardust had one older sister that was just like the other light furies so she did to the best of her abilities to keep Stardust away. Luna and I often hung out at the fungus pools. It was a quiet bottom area where the crystals filtered the light down, making it look like sunlight. Large toadstools and mushrooms grew around the sandy beaches. It was usually quiet and was just a great place to be inside the safety of the Secret Kingdom. But every now and then we'd get adventurous and fly out of the kingdom to see the real world. Every time we did it, we were safe. Humans never came close to the Secret Kingdom in their 'boats' and if they did, they'd either be elated by some dragons that were keeping watch, or they'd fall to their death, without wings they wouldn't survive the opening drop into the underground world that we lived in.

"We were catching some fish one time, when we saw the humans. It was a huge fleet of their boats heading towards us, we tried to use our plasma blast to cloak ourselves but it only made us invisible, not in touch able. They had seen us and shot out nets. We were dragged onto the boats. The humans were talking, and they said something like... "what's this white one? Think it'll get us extra?" "No. The night fury's enough. That white one won't get us more than a coin, throw it overboard." I didn't know what most of the words meant but I knew it wasn't good. Luna was dragged away by the big, reeking humans, and still wound in the net hauled overboard. I heard the splash and her scream. I could hear her breath escaping from her mouth in bubbles to the surface. I could hear her thrashing, trying to swim, but she was wound in the net and soon drown...

"I didn't trust the small amount of food they gave me so I didn't eat and the water was stale and smelled of iron, so I only drank when my body demanded it. I was being shipped to a island, I was forced into a small cage in the dank belly of the boat. The only other dragons there were two nadders and a monstrous nightmare. The nightmare was exceedingly shallow and hard to listen to for very long, while the two nadders were chattering like birds the whole time unless one of the humans yelled at them. After some days in the boat we were pulled ashore to an island swarming with humans. My cage was carted to be in rank with the many others. To my surprise another night fury was caged next to me.

"He was kind and gentle, he tried to get me to eat but I ignored him. One night, when the humans were getting the boat ready to ship me and this other fury to yet another human inhabited island, something went wrong. The port burst into flames, the boats quickly catching along with it. The humans hollered and ran around like disoriented terrible terrors. Some grabbed the night fury's cage and some grabbed mine, others were yelling for them to get back and help with the fire. We were brought into the woods and it was night.

"There was a feint whizzing sound and one of the humans dropped down, my night vision allowing me to see the arrow that now protruded from its back. Two more dropped down behind me and I pulled myself as small as I could in the center of my cage. Soon all but three of the ten humans were left. A dark figure appeared a few meters away, standing still as stone. It was another human, I thought, but this one smelled like the woods and wildlife. And had some kind of armor on, I looked closer and saw it was made with scales, dragon scales. And not just any at that, night fury scales. One of the hunters took up a bow and shot an arrow at the figure. It took a step to the side and missed the arrow by a claw length. I pricked my ears, wondering if it was scared, but I could hear it's breathing and heart beat, and the dragon scaled human was breathing at an even, unhurried pace. The hunters were scared though, and they took a step back.

""Dragon warrior" one of them had whispered shakily. Those were two words that I could understand. The 'dragon warrior' started walking forward, the hunter with the bow tried to shoot at it again but it hit the arrow aside with deadly accurate reflexes. Sudden in their hands they were holding two silver knives. The dragon warrior threw them and hit two of the hunters in the head. The last one screamed and started running, but they didn't get far. One of the nadders from the cages spiked him in the back, stabbing him in the heart and spine. He stumbled then fell, no longer a problem. I pressed myself back from the scaled human as they approach my cage. They other fury was growling softly but I could tell that he was more curious that scared. Now at my cage they pulled the lock mechanism and took out a twisted copper wire.

"They inserted it into the lock and wiggled it around until it clicked. The lock fell and they opened my cage. They didn't come at me or try to attack they just moved on to the other fury's cage and did the same thing. They stepped back and made a noise that resembled some kind of bird call. Far off another 'bird' call answered. The dragon warrior came to my cage again and lifted a helmet off their head. I was slightly confused when I looked on the young female's face. She was what the humans would call a 'teenager' with long wavy black hair and icy blue eyes.

""You can come out now," she, I do think it was a 'she', had said softly, she looked back over her shoulder and then back to me, "I can't stay long, I've got some friends to help, but I'd like to see you fly off first. I don't want the hunters to have you again." My mind thought about the nadder for a moment, it had been one of the caged ones, so maybe this human was helping the dragons get out. The hunters had called her a dragon warrior, what did that mean? The other night fury was already out of his cage.

"Come on," he said flapping his wings a little. "I don't think she'll hurt us." I sniffed, looking the human up and down. She seemed to be waiting for me to leave, and I wondered for a moment if she'd hurt me if I didn't go.

"RAVEN!!" A human shouted a little ways off from where they were, the human with black hair sighed.

"Shut UP XAN you are ASKING for the hunters to find us!" She screamed back. She glanced back at me, "I have to go," she tapped the cage "And some advice, stay away from humans, most of them would love to kill a dragon just like you." She turned and strode out into the trees. I didn't have to be told twice. I leaped out of the cage and into the air. The other fury followed me but I didn't have the energy to stop him. I was headed back towards the Secret Kingdom when her flew in front of me.

"Hey!" I exclaimed just managing to stop myself from slamming into him. I glared at him "Watch it!" He smiled,

"Sorry" he flicked his wings apologetically "Its just... where are you going?"

"The Secret Kingdom." I answered, trying to fly around him.

"With all those flashy light furies? Here, I have a better place to go." He turned in the sky and started off in a different direction. He looked back and smiled at me, "Are you coming?" Now that I thought about it I didn't really have a better place to go, the light furies would be even more horrible now that Luna wasn't there and she was the only reason that I ever got anywhere there. So I followed him, I didn't talk the whole way, it seemed, to me, that it was a waste of energy. It was almost midday when we made it to the island he had mentioned.

"It was huge, and it was beautiful. A large extinct volcano was a mountain in the center of the tropical paradise. Colourful birds flocked among the trees and rainbows glimmered in the mist of a waterfall that splashed down into a pool of water. I was speechless as we glided over the island, finally landing at the mouth of a warm, moss covered cave. I went inside and collapsed by one of the walls, falling asleep almost instantly. When I woke up it was dusk the next day. There was a pile of fish in front of me and the other night fury was no where to be seen. I tentatively leaned to sniff the fish, it smelled fresh and delicious. They were kinds of fish I had never seen before, there was a thumping sound and the other night fury came into the cave.

""Take them." He told me, nodding his head at the fish. I didn't think twice about it. I snapped up the fish and sat up, unfurling my wings to stretch them. "I've never seen a fury with those wings before, they're..." he trailed off thinking, I closed my wings and looked at him, waiting to see what he'd say next. "Wonderful" he finally said, smiling at me. I blinked,

""thank you." I finally said after a moment of silence.

""Do you have a name?" He asked kindly "I'm Shadow." He tilted his head in a kind of gentle way that made me feel a small bit better.

""My name's..." I stopped, the memories of my mother, and now Luna, being killed flashing before my eyes. I hadn't relized I was shaking until Shadow spread his wing over my back to comfort me.

""You don't have to tell me," he purred, his dark green eyes warm with sympathy. "Could I make a name for you?" He finally asked, pulling his wing back, I was quiet for a moment before nodding slightly. "What do you think about Twilight?" He asked in his gentle voice, I could tell he was thinking about my wings when he had offered the name, but I lifted my head slightly, looking into his eyes.

""I like that name" I said quietly. I grew up to a young adult with him at my side. And the jungle was our home, and it provided us with everything that we needed, food, shelter, warmth, and water. But they set it on fire. The humans came with their boats and tried to capture the dragons on our island. We fought them off and thought it was over. But it wasn't. They made an ember of fire and let it loose on our paradise. The smoke was heavy and black, covering the sky and making it hard to see or breathe. I heard one of the boats shoot something... a large boulder and it was followed by the roar of Shadow. I followed the sound and saw him half trapped under the stone in the midst of the fire.

""No no no no no!" I shrieked, wings flying up. In my heart I knew he was going to die, but I didn't want to loose anyone else. "Shadow!" I cried, coughing as I tried to make my way to his side through the thick smoke.

""Twilight?" He rasped, I laid down beside him and looked into his eyes. "Oh Twilight," he said softly, "I'm not going to make it."

""Yes you are!" I was desperate. So very desperate not to lose someone else in my life. But I also knew it was too late.

""Twilight, Promise me something," he said softly, I leaned in to hear. "Don't forget to live, even if I'm gone. Remember that there will always be love, and that you won't fall into darkness." He said. I nodded, feeling tears burn my eyes with the smoke.

""Don't go..." I sobbed "I need you," but his eyes went foggy and he was lost. I roared my pain into the forest, letting the world know my sorrow. But I had to leave. There was too much smoke getting into my lungs. But I couldn't leave him... I used my plasma to blast the rock off him and carried him away to a different island. I buried him there, and slept over his grave. Guarding him from other dragons that might harvest his body for food. I stayed there and didn't bother getting up for food, that by the time a human found me, I was too weak to move.

"She had the look of a girl who had been on her own for a while, with cloths that seemed to be made from leafs or ferns woven together. She approached me and I didn't trust her, I hissed, flapping my wings weakly to try and scare her into backing off.

""Woah, woah, shhhhhh, I'm not here to hurt you, I'm not like other humans." She said softly, I normally didn't understand human, but her voice wasn't threatening and her brown eyes were warm. I laid on my side and expected that if she wanted to, she'd kill me. I heard her leave and rolled back into my original position. Odd. My stomach growled and I felt like I was about to pass out, but I heard rustling and then the human came back into the clearing, holding a salmon in one hand. My mouth watered at the delectable sight of fish, but I was still cautious to take it from a human. She smiled at me, and dropped it in front of my head. I didn't waste another moment and scarfed it down in one bite. I looked at her and tilted my head.

""Oh, I have more, if that what your asking, I can go get it." As a night fury I can learn other languages rather quickly compared to other beings and I was starting to understand most of what she was saying, I guess I just never gave the chance to learn it to other humans that I had encountered. Day after day she returned and fed me, and I started to trust her more and more. One early morning before her usual visit and stood up. For the first time in days I stretched my legs, my wings, my neck, and my tail. I rested my nose on the earth I had slept on for a week.

""I'm so sorry Shadow." I murmured "But to keep your promise, I have to leave." I stood up and left the clearing, hesitantly at first, but more confidently after I remember, this is what he'd want me to do. I soon caught the human's sent and followed it to her little make-shift camp. She was just waking up and I could tell she was overly surprised at my appearance. She slowly stood up and cautiously made her way up to me.

""You're up!" She had exclaimed happily. She reached out with one of her hands but pulled back a little, she turned her head and held it out more slowly, waiting for me to make the first move, I thought for a moment, and then reached my head out and lightly pressed my nose to her hand. She looked back and a smile split her face. I could tell she was happy, and, that made me happy. I stayed at her camp for another week, and we bonded while I helped her fish and collect food. We become close and one day I wondered if there was a way I could fly with her. I didn't like leaving for a long time, I had lost so many dragons that I didn't want to risk her too.

"One morning I stuck my head in her little 'tent' and stared at her until she notice, she woke up with a start at seeing me staring her dead in the eye. She stood and followed me out. I turned my head to point to my back as well as I could and looked at her meaningfully. I completed the motion again and sniffed.

""You want me to get on your back?" She asked slowly. I nodded, flapping my wings. "Ok," she took a deep breath, "I trust you." She said, walking to my side and swinging her leg over me so she was sitting just above where my wings met my shoulders. I leaped up into the sky and spiraled down, flinging my wings open at the last moment and launching back up into the clouds. She was yelling and holding in tight, I felt her slipping so I slowed my pace to a more measured beating of my wings. She relaxed and eventually lifted her arms up to feel through the clouds.

""This is beautiful" she leaned down to say close to my ears as we glided over the clouds in the early morning sunrise. After that we flew more often and further and further till we made it to unknown islands and found different dragons. But there was a problem, some of the dragons we found disliked humans like they were poison. We managed to avoid and survive the attacks we couldn't. We were both experienced but one night it wasn't enough. We were flying up in the clouds, looking up at the stars, she had named me Midnight by then and I had started to call her Lotus.

"Suddenly the air currents shifted and I felt her suddenly start to wobble on my back. It was then that I noticed the shift in air currents meant that the oxygen that she needed was no longer in the supply that she needed to breathe. I noticed this and started diving down but I didn't want to go too fast because she'd fall. But I wasn't going fast enough and she went unconscious and fell off my back I dove to catch her but her momentum was too much and when I caught her her insides were rammed into her and she was killed. I still blame myself and.... I promised to never love again. I buried her where her camp sight was and left. Keeping to myself I tried to avoid everyone I could and it was working until..."

"Until you found me." Toothless finished. Echo was crying silently and Toothless unfolded one of his wings over her back. She leaned into him and pressed her face into his shoulder without really thinking. This wasn't the best topic. No, actually, it was the worst topic. Relaying tragedy after tragedy, it was repetitive, and stupid, and horrible, and made it hard to say things. But she supposed, maybe, if she was going to be stuck here with Toothless, she might as well not lie to him about it.

Chapter Text

Echo was laying on a rock, sunning herself in the early morning light before she would go back to sleep for the day. Toothless was lazily sitting at the edge of the cove, watching some of the fish flit back a forth. The peace was interrupted by something snapping in the distance. Echo shot upright instantly, her piercing eyes staring at where the noise had come from. There with a rather guilty looking expression was Toothless's human. The human was taking a step back but its foot caught on a smooth stone and it tripped, falling on its back and tumbling down into the sheltered cove. Echo reared up, opening her mouth to shoot a dart at the human.

"Wait! Echo—" Toothless roared, jumping in the way of her shot. She faltered but the small dart was already shooting out.

"Toothless!" She screeched as the dart whizzed in the air. Before he could move it hit him in the neck, his pupils dilated and he fell to the earth, almost instantly unconscious. Echo jumped down from the stone she had been on, growling at the human who had also shouted Toothless's name she stepped outside her boundary, her wings half open as she side stepped over to Toothless's body. Keeping the human in her sight the whole way. She spread her wings out and closed her eyes to concentrate. She had never used her darts on another night fury, but maybe it would work like it did with the other dragons.

***

Opening her eyes she let out a sigh of relief. She was in her mind space, nothing but gray all around. Nothing, except the shape of Toothless who was looking around with a rather confused expression. She bounded in front of him and smacked him with one of her wings.

"Owww." Toothless complained

"That was for scaring me!" She huffed, touching noses with him. "Why did you get in the way!?" She exclaimed, looking him up and down.

"Because I still don't know what your darts do and I didn't want you hurting Hiccup!" Toothless replied, in a voice that was a mix of sheepish and offended.

"Fish brain!" Echo said, shoving her head under his for a moment. "I wouldn't have hurt him because you were around. You would've stopped me." She said pulling back to look him in the eyes again. "I have no idea what my darts do to other furies! You could have gotten seriously hurt or... something!"

"Ok ok sorry," Toothless licked the top of Echo's forehead. "Can you wake me up?" He asked "like.. reverse the effects of your dart thing?" Echo blinked. She had done something like that before, but she wasn't sure that it would work one hundred percent with another fury... still... she could try.

"I.. I think so.." she said uncertainty, "Give me a second..." she closed her eyes again, pushing even more concentration to the dart. And the next thing she knew her eyes were open and Toothless was blearily getting up in front of her. He smiled at her, pressing his nose on her's.

"I knew you could do it." He said warmly, taking a step back. The human, Hiccup, or whatever his name was, was standing back, watching the two night furies with amazement. Toothless looked at him and walked up to the human, he turned and looked at Echo, gesturing with a tilt of his head that he wanted her to come with him. She took a pawstep back but then took a deep breath. This is what Shadow would want her to do... right? Echo sidled a few paces forward, and then a few more, until she was just within reach of Hiccup. The human breathed out the breath it had seemed to be holding and slowly reached out one of his hands. Echo curled her lip at it and he drew it back.

"Woah..." Hiccup whispered in a shocked sounding voice. Echo lowered her lip and blinked at the human's round, flat face. Her human speak was a little rusty but she could make out most of Toothless's partner's words. "So this is where you go every night bud." Hiccup said, swinging his arms at his sides awkwardly. Echo shot Toothless a look as if to ask if he was going to do anything more. Toothless shrugged and Echo turned, flipping her tail in the sandy ground and making it spray up both Hiccup's, and Toothless's noses.

"Hey!" Toothless called after sneezing out the sand, over her shoulder Echo stuck out her tongue teasingly as she started walking innocently away Toothless pounced on top of her making them both tumble on the ground Echo squirmed out from under the larger dragon and jumped forward, grabbing a stick in her mouth she swung it around in mock defense, her eyes sparkling happily like they hadn't in years.

Toothless lunged and grabbed one end of the stick, tugging it half way out of her mouth. Echo tightened her hold on it and pulled too, soon enveloped in the game of tug. Both furies growled playfully as the game continued until Toothless managed to tug it hard enough to make Echo drop her end. He gurgled triumphantly and booped her nose with the stick.

"Show off." Echo chirped affectionately, batting his head with her paw. Purring Toothless dropped the stick and nudged Echo back towards Hiccup. Echo gave him a quizzical look and he sighed.

"Just let him look at your wing?" Toothless tried, but Echo shook her head.

"It was a clean break. It'll be fine in another couple weeks." She said, sniffing the edge of her broken wing.

"Ok, but if it gets worse.."

"I'll let you take me to the humans blah blah." Echo interrupted, rolling her eyes. Toothless seemed pleased with that answer and trotted down back to Hiccup. Echo wandered back to her boundary and leaped to her branch that she dropped her tail over the edge of and hung upside down, closing her wings around herself she started drifting off into sleep.

Chapter Text

After a few days Echo noticed the Hiccup boy returning more often, sitting on the far side of the cove with a little leather bound stack of papers and some charcoal on a stick. Every now and again seeing if he can edge closer without her glaring him back a few steps. Toothless kept trying to convince her to let him up to the edge of her boundary and Echo continued to decline. He may trust this human but Echo still had her doubts. One early morning with fog hovering in the air, the sun not even out yet Echo lifted her head from the fish she had been nibbling and pricked her ears to the noise of a human calling something out over and over.

"Toothless!" It sounded like it was calling for Toothless. Cautiously getting to her paws she pulled herself in, partly arching her back. The human sounded like Hiccup but she wasn't sure. She hadn't seen Toothless all night, he hadn't shown up and she had rationally come to the conclusion that he had been busy all day and needed rest. But if his human was looking for him it must not be the case. Rolling the shoulder of her almost-healed wing she hissed quietly to herself.

Echo strode quickly out of her small area of territory, head dipping down as she muttered to herself. Once she was at the edge of the cove she crouched and leapt up, tail swinging she hooked her claws onto the stone and pulled herself up onto the ledge, flapping her left wing and (carefully) her right she jumped again and again, nearly slipping once or twice Echo cursed at her injured wing as she made it to the forest floor. Weaving through the trees the night fury tracked the sound of the human's voice until she found it wandering with it's hands cupped around it's mouth, still calling for it's dragon "partner".

Echo hunkered down in the ferns and slid forward a little. Hiccup heard the ferns swish and spun around and stared at her, for a moment she wondered if he was shocked or something then remembered human night vision was not the best and that she was black and hiding, and he could probably only see her eyes. Standing up she lifted her head and stepped forward a little to where the feint gray light filtered down from the branches.

***

(Hiccup POV) the sleek form of the she-fury stood still in the dim light, her eyes intelligent and staring at him with an intensity he didn't think any animal was capable of. He remembered the night after he had accidentally made it known to her and Toothless that he had been watching them. It had been after he was starting to notice a difference in Toothless's behavior, he had been more snappy and tired, not going as fast as he usually did during training and slinking off when it was getting close to nighttime. Hiccup had started to follow him a night or two before getting caught. On the way home Hiccup had been talking to Toothless, or, himself, he guessed. He had been asking allowed what to call the she-fury and Toothless shot his echolocation into the tree ahead of them. It had startled Hiccup for a second before he understood Toothless was trying to tell him something.

"You know what to call her, Bud?" Hiccup had asked, Toothless purred and shot his echolocation again. "Echolocation?" Toothless had made a motion almost like shaking his head but did the same thing again. "Ech... echo? You want to call her Echo, Bud?" Toothless had swished his tail happily and purred loudly. Back in the present moment Hiccup stood perfectly still.

"Echo? What are you doing out of the cove? Your wing can't be healed yet..." she didn't acknowledge him in anyway, continuing to stare him dead in the eyes. "Do you know where Toothless is? Is he ok?" She gave him a small roar shook her head, flapping her wings a little. "Is that a no?" She gave him a dubious glare and snorted, trotting the way Hiccup had came with her nose to the ground. Hiccup stayed in place for a moment before awkwardly hurrying after Echo as she quickly followed his trail back to the village.

She stopped at the edge of the Viking huts, crouching down and growling quietly. The night fury glanced briefly at Hiccup as he came up to her side before expertly stalking around the village, skirting the cliffs and climbing the side of the hill Hiccup's house was, where he knew his father, Stoic the Vast, was sleeping soundly. Hiccup came up the stairs instead of the side of the hill just in time to see Echo, nose no longer to the ground, racing down the back side of the steep hill, wings half unfurled slightly showing the spectacular underside. Hiccup didn't have time to catch his breath, or think, or ask questions. Echo was moving fast and he'd loose her soon.

He ran after her, following her tail into the woods and ducking under branches. After at least two or three minutes of running all of a sudden the she-fury halted, causing Hiccup to skid to a stop almost crashing into her. She shot him a glance and hissed at him, lifting herself onto her back legs she held her head in the air. She got back down on all fours and made a small whining noise, turning in a small circle and pawing at the ground.

"Don't worry. We'll find him." Hiccup said, somehow knowing she had lost the trail she had been following. "We have tracker dragons back at the stables, Stormfly and Skullcrusher are the best of the best." He told her confidently, as she stopped pawing the ground in distress to look at Hiccup, her eyes weary and scared. "You won't be able to find him with a broken wing." Hiccup said slowly after a long pause, speaking as if he were walking on thin ice, slowly and carefully. She growled quietly but didn't do anything else.

The sun was starting to peak through the fog and Hiccup started to make his way back to the village, surprised when he heard Echo quietly trailing him, her head low and wings tight to her sides. Hiccup tried to keep his outer demeanor confident and calm but on the inside he wanted to run around happily like a little kid, the new Night Fury was finally starting to trust him! But now was not the time for excitement, not if Toothless was missing. He made his was around the village instead of going through as to not draw any unwanted attention to his new companion. He crossed the bridge to the dragon training arena where Echo stopped outside, making quiet unsettled roars as she paced back and forth before the stone ramp that led into the arena.

"Come on Echo don't bail on me now." Hiccup said, "I agree the training arena can look a little scary to a dragon at first," especially considering what it was used for before we befriended dragons Hiccup added mentally "But I promise, it's safe, Toothless comes in here all the time." Echo stopped her movement to give Hiccup a face that said 'that dragon would walk around in a strange human house if they offered him a trout.' "It's not that bad, lots of dragons sleep in here over night. In fact you might make some new friends." Hiccup said opening the gate and stepping backwards into the stone arena. Reluctantly the night fury followed, jumping back at the noise of someone opening the chain net covering the top.

"Oooo is that was I think it is?" Asked the exited high pitch of Fishlegs's voice from the entrance. Whorling and hissing Echo leapt backwards, fluttering her wings as if wondering to flash out the undersides or not.

"If you're thinking a very wild and untamed female night fury than, yes." Hiccup replied, glancing at Echo who snarled, snapping her teeth, as Fishlegs tried to get closer. "Echo, meet Fishlegs, he's probably the best human you could find yourself snarling at. Fishlegs, meet Echo, you might not want to go near her until she decides to trust you."

"Oh, I just thought since she's here it means you tamed her, but, I guess she could have followed Toothless to the village maybe? Or wait, where is Toothless?" Fishlegs asked, cutting himself off to look around.

"That's actually why I found her. I woke up early this morning to see if I could watch them together for a little while but when I looked into the cove she was alone, I started searching the island and she came out to find me, clearly she hasn't seen Toothless either, the first thing she did was follow my sent back to the village where she tried to follow Toothless's trail. We lost it about half way to the cove, I convinced her to come here so I could talk with the rest of the gang."

"Oh no that terrible! I'll go get everyone else!" Fishlegs said, using one hand to hold onto his tiny helmet as he turned and ran out.

"See he's not so bad." Hiccup tried, the she-fury hissed, glaring at Hiccup. The noise of Hookfang waking made her jump again. "Don't worry it's just Hookfang, he's not going to do anything." Hiccup said, holding out his hands to try to calm her.

"We heard from Fishlegs what did you want to talk about." Astrid said sprinting down into the arena. Growling low in her throat Echo backed against the wall.

"Yeah. I was in the middle of a wonderful breakfast. And you do not want to get between me and my breakfast Hiccup. You do not." Snotlout said, crossing his arms.

"Woah is that what I think it is?" Tuffnut asked, "Hey I wonder if she can do that dart thing on me!"

"Oh yeah... Here dragon dragon! Shoot Tuffnut girl! Yeah!" Ruffnut said, grabbing Tuffnut and shoving him at Echo. The night fury reared back, hissing, before scampering to the other side of the arena. Everyone was staring at her except for Hiccup and Astrid.

"Wow. I thought you were making that thing about the under side of her wings up." Snotlout said. The sudden clanking of gears made Hiccup spin around to see Ruffnut pulling the lever to open all of the dragon cages.

"Uh Ruff that might not be the best idea, she doesn't really like other dragons either-" Hiccup cautioned.

"This dragon doesn't like anything." She said coming back over. Barf, Belch, Hookfang, Stormfly, and Meatlug crowded around Echo, making curious chirps and clicks. Echo eyed them warily, shifting back a little. She hissed as Hookfang, Barf, and Belch started getting too close, batting away one of the two zippleback heads. Stormfly chirped loudly, snapping her fangs at the other dragons and herding them off. Turning back to Echo she trilled softly and Echo replied with a quiet purr, tilting her head at the nadder.

"Astrid we're going to need Stormfly to find Toothless." Hiccup said, turning back to his friends seriously. At the mention of Toothless Echo and Stormfly both perked up.

"Right. When do we start searching?" Astrid asked immediately getting back to the problem at hand, jogging to grab Stormfly's saddle.

"Now. While the trail is still relatively fresh."

Chapter Text

Echo tucked her wings into her sides, well, as best she could without her injured one hurting, waiting for the group of humans to get everything they needed. The blue and yellow nadder tilted her head at Echo and the other dragons, while keeping their distance, also seemed very intrigued.

"What's your name?" The nadder ventured eventually. She seemed friendly enough, and Echo was willing to respect her for shooing away the other dragons.

"Does she even talk?" One of the heads of the zippleback asked in its voice, somewhere between a hiss, a chitter, and a warble.

"Of course she does. You, hush." The nadder snipped, with the attitude of someone used to this kind of behavior from that dragon, before turning back and cocking her head at Echo. "Sorry about them." She chirped, "Toothless told me he met another fury, your wings are gorgeous." She complemented, bobbing up and down a little, like a bird, clearly just as curious as the other dragons.

"Thanks." Echo said, trying to keep awkwardness out of her tone, "I'm... Echo." She said slowly, as if still unsure of calling herself anything, really.

"I'm Stormfly." The nadder said, fluffing out her wings a little, and Echo nodded politely. She had never been much of a social dragon.

"I'm Meatlug." Warbled the groncle from where she stood, looking exited. "I'm sorry for crowding you, it's just we thought that Toothless was the last one." Echo couldn't quite explain it, but this dragon had almost a motherly tone of voice, or perhaps like an aunt that always caught extra fish just for you. She could tell that this dragon probably had a heart too big for it's own good, but then again, she supposed, they did live with humans. Which brought most of their decision making into question.

"I'm Hookfang!" The monstrous nightmare said boldly, "The best dragon there is." He added with a huff of smoke, and Echo caught Stormfly giving a very 'over it' look at him.

"I'm Barf." One head of the zipple back said, lifting up high. "I'm Belch." The one to Echo's right said, snaking around low to the ground. She decided not to comment on their names, assuming that, like Toothless, they had been given by humans. Echo bobbed her head at them in acknowledgment and glanced back to the human, what was his name again, Hiccup? Human names were strange. Wondering if they were ready to go. She recognized one of the girl Vikings as the one that had come down to the cove when she had first broken her wing, the one with the silver weapon. This one was coming to Stormfly with a leather saddle.

Echo suppressed her distaste. What self respecting dragon would wear a saddle? She internally sighed. Ok, she supposed maybe that it wasn't the end of the world and these dragons didn't seem to care, and in fact, seemed to enjoy the presence of their humans. Of course they did. As Toothless had persistently said, they were partners. ...but Echo still didn't quite want to warm up to them. Not yet.

"Alright, er- Echo, is it?" Hiccup said coming closer and stopping a respectable distance away, clearly understanding that she wasn't quite ready to trust him enough. Echo tilted her head at him, to show she was listening. "I guess your wing still isn't in top condition, so... do you want to stay here while we search? Or- or" he added hastily, seeing the expression she made to being not only out in the open, but awake at an unholy hour (in her nocturnal eyes), and in a human-made place. "You could go back and wait at the cove, unless you want to follow along on the ground, which would be slow, but if you want..." he trailed off, glancing back at the other Vikings that were giving him either confused of mildly concerned faces for speaking to the night fury as if she would respond. Echo looked at her injured wing and flexed it as best she could, wincing slightly. She huffed through her nose then shook her head and looked at hiccup, her blue eyes determined.

"I'll search the ground on my own." She said, though the human must have just heard a small roar in response.

"Was that a... you'll stay at the cove or a you'll look around on the ground?" He asked awkwardly, and Echo flapped her wings at the second option, hoping he would understand. He nodded and turned to face the other people. "Alright guys, saddle up, we need to find Toothless." He said, "I'll ride with Astrid, the rest of you, spread out around the island, he can't fly on his own so if he wasn't somehow taken by someone, then he should still be on Berk."

"Yeah. Yeah. Great, whatever. Let's go Hookfang." Said one of the boys, with a roll of his eyes. Apparently though, the monstrous nightmare had other ideas and swept his tail in a large arch, knocking the human off his feet, laughing as the human got up and glared at him. Echo lashed her tail a few times impatiently, still feeling a little agitated. She didn't like being in this stony arena. The humans got on their respective dragons, the two looking almost identical getting onto the zipple back, she thought Hiccup had referred to the female one as 'Ruff' and the male had been called 'Tuffnut' by Ruff, whom she assumed was his sister. The large one that almost looked like a square, named Fishlegs, was getting on the friendly groncle and the one who Hookfang had tripped climbed onto the nightmare's back. Hiccup got onto Stormfly behind the human girl who must have been Astrid.

"Don't worry." Stormfly said, stomping over again and bowing forward to be at Echo's eye level. "Toothless is my best friend, I want to find him too. And I will." She chittered in a reassuring way and Echo nodded slightly, following, at a distance, as the dragons and their humans filed out, taking off in different directions.

Echo slunk out after them, careful to avoid places she smelled more humans and eventually skirted the town and started searching through the forest, her tail flicking and brushing aside ferns and long grass as she stayed nearly perfectly silent, trying to pick up anything, her ears pricked. The mist had cleared up and every now and again she would see other dragons in the sky, more than a few times she ran into some terrible terrors. Once in a while she would catch glimpses of the dragons with riders searching the sky and sometimes Stormfly would swoop by, probably because Hiccup wanted to check on her or something.

Unfortunately Echo didn't find much, and she was really tired. There were enough other dragons looking for Toothless, and she probably wasn't helping too much on the ground. She wandered off to the base of the mountain on the middle of the island and found a cave, just a little off the ground. Poking her head inside she sniffed the air. It was slightly damp and a little cool, but she couldn't smell any other dragons. Judging by the subtle current of air it went back pretty deep. Curious, and maybe looking for a place to sleep out of the open, Echo hopped slightly to get into the mouth of the cave and started to walk down. It got dark the deeper she went but she could still see, having good night vision.

The cave did in fact go further into the mountain. A lot further than she had initially anticipated but she didn't really mind. She pricked her ears, listening for anything other than the drip of water off stalactites and the slight patter of her steps. The cave floor slanted down and she could tell that she was a lot further underground than just under the mountain. Her tail swished, lifted just slightly off the ground and its fins brushed the walls. Eventually, after the floor evened out and the tunnel started twisting and turning she found a large clutter of eggshells. Whispering deaths, which made sense, as she had previously wondered about the smaller tunnels around, though it appeared that these dragons had been long gone for a while now.

Following some more tunnels she traced the sent of salt water to a different cave entrance on a beach facing out to the ocean. She tilted her head, glancing around, but it didn't appear to be of any interest. She turned and it took a while of tracking her own sent to retrace her way all the way back but she made it back to the woods. That had been interesting but not particularly useful. Huffing slightly she turned her head and looked up at the sky. It was way too late into the day for any night fury to be awake. With the exception of Toothless, she guessed, who was awake during the day with his human partner.

Sighing, she wondered if she should keep searching, from the ground where Toothless almost definitely still wasn't, or go back to the dove and try to get some sleep. Maybe she could keep looking later. She stretched, arching her back and shaking out her wings. She really wanted to spread her injured wing out to its full extent and fly through the endless star covered dark blue of the night sky. She closed her eyes as she imagined clouds whisking past her as she flew high enough to practically touch the moon and the rush of falling back with the pull of the earth, that dragged her plummeting away from the silver beauty of the sky, until she spread her wings and the wind pushed her back up. She could almost feel the sharp cold of the sea as she dived in and out like a sea shocked of the sky dipping into the water for a breath. The breezes bringing her sents of food from islands she could rest at. Opening her eyes again she sighed again, wistfully.

If only her wing could heal faster. She could practically imagine flying to the secret kingdom again in one day. Then, a thought poked at her mind that she was surprised to hear. What about Toothless? What about him? He was really kind, and had been respectful and helpful and nice. And he was missing, which she didn't like. But Echo wasn't quite ready to admit anything. She had lived on her own and it had been great, though lonely, she would admit. Part of her defensive self-built emotional wall started pricking up again but, again to her surprise, she managed to keep it down. If she wanted to then she could visit Toothless when she could fly. There was nothing stopping her, right? Oh. The humans. But she could figure something out.

She started picking her way back in the direction of where she thought the cove was. She wasn't being too much of a help, without being able to fly, and she didn't really know where to go since she had lost his sent trail at the dawn. She huffed as she made it to the edge of the cove, watching the sun sparkle on the water as she cautiously hopped down into the safety of the rock-guarded area. Echo crossed back over her boundary line in the sand, which had become somewhat unkempt over the past weeks, jumping up to the tree branch once again and draping her tail across to close her wings around herself and tuck her head. She would search for Toothless at night, when she was in her element, and after she got some real sleep.

Chapter Text

Echo only slept lightly, despite how tired she was, eventually waking much earlier than she normally did with the sun still slightly above the horizon. But it was better than nothing and she knew that once she was up there wasn't much of a chance that she'd be going back to sleep. The she-fury dropped down from the branch, stretching before bounding forward and pouncing up part of the steep wall of the cove. Delicately flapping her broken wing, and her unbroken one, to get up all the way just as she had the early morning before.

She crouched slightly as she slunk through the undergrowth, taking in each of the different sents and untangling them internally. A flock of terrible terrors over there. The human village still reeked and she could find that easily at least. Mingling with the sent of many other dragons. Some sheep. Yaks. Nothing else other than the smell of the forest itself.

She flattened her ears, grumbling quietly to herself as she slithered her way to the stony cold arena she had seen the day before. Avoiding the human village as best she could on the way. Luckily it wasn't closed yet. It probably would be soon for the night though, so she'd have to be quick. What were those other dragons' names? That had been hunting for Toothless as well. Maybe they had news.

She poked her head up from where she had been crouching at a distance. Vikings were still unfortunately crawling about everywhere. Maybe not everywhere but absolutely still within sight. She narrowed her blue eyes in thoughts, backing away slightly from the ledge of the forest that broke off in a cliff that was near the arena. With this many dragons around, could she afford to go invisible? Dragons weren't the ones she was worried about, of course. But the humans seeing it? Defiantly something she would rather not have happen. And besides. Could she glide down? Her wing was healing but still not in the best condition.

Echo growled quietly, turning in an anxious and impatient circle, her tail hissing over the grass as she thrashed it slightly in the same motion. Pawing the ground with her eyes still narrowed in thought Echo huffed. Maybe she could just sneak by. She lifted her head again to taste the sents coming from the arena. She wrinkled her nose slightly, smelling the monstrous nightmare. Definitely not her favorite other dragon, especially out of the ones with human 'riders' but she would take whatever she could get. Echo had to carefully pick her way around the shadows. Avoiding humans and other dragons as much as she possibly could. There were a few times when she ran into another dragon but for some reason the dragons here didn't really seem to mind a new dragon around. Or something. They all just gave her a curious look or tilt of the head but most of them could've sense her uneasiness and didn't bother her further, shockingly enough.

The walkway to the arena felt wayyy too exposed though. No shade, just right there in the open. With humans everywhere. Crouching again, slightly far off in a little patch of shadow out of the way she reviewed her options, repressing the urge to flap her wings nervously. Keeping her head and body low she eventually just made a slight run for it, reflexively starting when she was sure no human was looking. The village seemed to be getting empty, luckily. As each of the humans went into their nest-huts or whatever they were, and she made it into the entry of the arena, which was relatively out of sight.

She scanned the inside and spotted where the nightmare, Hookfang? Was. In an open cage, seemingly snickering quietly to himself a mischievous expression on his face. His yellow eyes watching the area. When he spotted her in the shadow he stopped. Lifting his long neck a little as if to get a better view from where he was hunkering in hiding, or, he appeared to be hiding. The orange dragon looked rather unsure about how to continue and Echo wasn't the most social dragon so she wasn't sure how to start this conversation either. She took a hesitant step then carefully skirted around the edge of the arena, jerking back slightly when the monstrous nightmare's head popped out curiously.

"Hello." The dragon rumbled, tilting his head again, his long horns casting a slight shadow with the setting sun. "I didn't really expect you to show up, like, ever. On your own." He said, round yellow eyes watching her every move.

"I know." Echo grumbled, "and I would rather have not. But I couldn't smell anything and I wanted to be sure of anything I didn't know or... something or if you found Toothless already and I didn't need to search." She said begrudgingly, lashing her tail and looking away.

"Oh. Oh." Hookfang was quiet for a moment, expression almost calculating. "Well I don't know if we found him at all. Stormfly isn't back, as far as I'm aware." He lifted his head up, taking a long moment to smell the air. "I still can't smell her. Or Astrid and Hiccup." He flapped his wings in an 'I don't know, but whatever' kind of way, snapping to attention when a loud "HOOKFANG!" Could be heard, almost a shrieking kind of yell, diffidently from a human, and the nightmare snickered again, pulling his head back into the cage. Echo jumped back at the sound, then hearing a human approaching used her fire quickly, shooting at the ground and letting the heat engulf her so she could disappear.

Just in time, as whoever had been yelling showed up. Thought that was probably because of her blast and the sound it caused along with the small cloud of smoke that followed the burst. One of the 'rider' humans. The one who had ridden Hookfang earlier. She hadn't liked that one. But the human spotted the orange and black dragon in the back of his open cage and stormed down into the arena, dripping wet and shivering just slightly.

"Not funny Hookfang." The human said, and Echo wasn't always the best at detecting what meaningful ones were in the words of human speech but this definitely was someone at the end of their patience. "NOT funny." They repeated, and Hookfang poked his head out again and grumbled a mocking laugh noise at the human. "You cant disrespect me like that! You know what? I'm not going to give you your extra food for breakfast tomorrow. Yeah. You see how it feels." The rider turned around, crossing his arms huffily and closing his eyes pointedly though he didn't walk away. The only response he got was Hookfang blowing a sharp blast of hot air and knocking his horned helmet off. "Hookfang!" The human said again angrily fumbling to grab it before it fell to the stone ground anyway and he had to bend over to grab it.

Hookfang glanced around ignoring his human for a moment, clearly being able to smell Echo still there but not able to actually see her. Echo was baking away, step by step, eyeing the human with her ears flattened. Why was this one so loud? And clumsy? She couldn't understand this relationship between the dragon and this human. Hookfang seemed happy annoying and embarrassing this human, who seemed bossy, demanding, and generally mad about it. She wrinkled her nose. At least the mutual respect between Toothless and Hiccup kind of made sense. She supposed, anyway. She never might really understand a dragon willingly staying forever with a human like all the dragons on this island seemed to do. Except for Lotus. She had been different. She sidled off, still eyeing both of them when there was evil snickering from the entrance of the arena and a clanging noise.

"Ruff, Tuff! Don't you dare!" The annoying human, who had his helmet back on ran towards the entrance but it was too late, Echo let out a distressed roar despite herself but it looked like nobody other than Hookfang noticed, who tilted his head, attention snapping away for a moment eyes locking on the area the sound came from. Not understanding where the scent of Echo but not the sight of Echo was.

"Ssssorry Snotlout. We didn't see you in there." A voice said, though it was very very clearly a lie.

"Let me out! Hey! Where are you going! Get back here!!" Echo winced again with the distant laughter from two more people faded off. Apparently those two were going to leave him in there for the night. Leave her there for the night. Why was this Snotlout so loud? Did he really need to be screaming? But Echo didn't have time to think about that because now she was trapped. Trapped inside the stone and metal arena where a few human weapons sat off in a crate and on a rack. And trapped with probably the worst human to be trapped with.

She hopped up, desperately clawing at the wall, her tail thrashing behind her as if it would somehow help at all, trying to get up. To at least the thick bars. She should be able to squeeze through them since they were sideways for the most part. Now Snotlout noticed the invisible scratching and noises and froze.

"Um." He backed away, "Hookfang are we in here with a nice invisible thing or maybe something like, I don't know, a change wing?" He said in a whisper that wasn't actually a very good whisper at all. Hookfang, unbothered by this turn of events, just shuffled around, lifting his large striped wings as he did so and waddling off to a part of the arena to lay down. Half curled around with his wings partially close to his sides the large dragon closed his bright eyes as if pretending to to hear anyone.

"Nighty dragon, female Toothless, stop making all that noise." He grumbled slightly, not quite unkindly but Echo still shot him an invisible glare.

"Maybe I wouldn't be if I wasn't trapped in some gigantic cage." She hissed quietly. Speed walking around the vague perimeter of the arena and going into the almost tunnel entrance to paw uselessly at the door.

"It's not actually bad anymore." The nightmare said without opening his eyes at all. "They'll open it in the morning or something."

"The morning isn't soon enough." Echo snapped slightly, clearly in distress. The human jumped and Hookfang opened one eyes to huff another breath of hot air at the human, who promptly dropped his helmet again somehow and shot a very pointed glare at Hookfang, then when Echo made another noise rushed over to beside Hookfang anyway.

"It won't eat me right?" The human asked cautiously and Echo had a dubious look on her face. So much for being a tough Viking that wasn't scared of anything.

"Yes." Hookfang said sarcastically, "The invisible Night Fury is going to eat you alive and I won't do anything about it unlike all those other times when I have risked myself to save you from something." Both dragons knew that the humans couldn't understand their speech, which was probably for the better in some situations if Echo was being honest, but Echo was pretty sure most humans should be able to tell what they were feeling or the emotion they were conveying through their growls.

Echo paced, flapping her wings slightly and causing the air to stir. Her icy eyes scanning the area and locating one of the dragon cells. It had a big log locking it shut about half way up the door. She might be able to use that as an extra boost to jump out! But her wing... she tilted her head slightly to glance at it, or, where she could feel that it was. She would need to fly a little to get to the right spot. And flying wasn't really something she could do unless she wanted to set back weeks of progress.

Chapter Text

She couldn't risk it. Her scales, her whole being itself, itched to get out of this stony, caged prison. But even if it was just a slight chance to leave, she couldn't risk the off chance that it would ruin her wing more. She just couldn't. These people... seemed like they wouldn't hurt her. That was a plus. For now. Maybe a neutral, actually. They were humans, after all. Humans could never be trusted.

And yet, now she was starting to question that. They had ruined... everything, really. Her family, her best friend, her home, her love. And yet here she was, on a new island that was infested with the strange creatures, where they lived side by side with dragons. The concept was still so... strange and foreign to her that she still couldn't quite bring herself to understand it. Dragons and humans. She didn't think it possible. And yet here it was, right in front of her nose.

She went back to pacing. She wasn't sure she could do this. All night? In a tiny area? With positivity nothing of interest? Still with no idea where Toothless was either, which wasn't making her feel any more comfortable whatsoever. Where had he gone? He couldn't fly himself, right? Certainly not. That's why he needed his... companion. Human. Friend. Pet. Whatever their relationship was. They'd have searched the whole island by now, he couldn't just be gone, could he? That wouldn't make any sense for it to happen anyway. He liked his human. He wouldn't just go missing.

Still, there was nothing she could do at the moment. She'd slept all day, she didn't need rest at the moment. In fact, she'd rather be eaten alive by a pack of terrible terrors than stay still. At least then it would be something other than... this! Arrrg why was this so frustrating??? Normally, she could be a very patient dragon. A very silent dragon. A wonderful hunter, if she said so herself, and she certainly did say so herself. Which required her to be patient and silent and not itching to move or be trapped in a cave or something, because that was dumb and terrible and why did she have to be so stupid.

Alright, maybe risking a still broken wing wasn't that much of a risk. After all, it didn't require real strain, right? And she had gotten out of the cove just fine by flapping her wings. She could do this. Then came the problem, she was probably still too bug to quite fit through the bars. Maybe. Night furies were a decently medium sized dragon, she even a little smaller than usual. Besides, they weren't round or big like gronkles or deadly nadders. Night furies were agile and slim and built for slipping around unnoticed and hiding in smaller areas other dragons couldn't get them in like cracks and crevices.

Echo flexed her claws, her crystal eyes narrowing a little as she thought about it. The more she thought, the more sense it made. She should be able to get out again. And if worst came to worst, she could always just fire her way out. Her tail flicked. By now her invisibility trick had worn off, but the loud shrieking human and Hookfang were both asleep. If she did this right, she'd be able to get out. Then there was the problem of what exactly she would do once she was out.

Get food, was the first thing that came to mind. Fish. Maybe a sheep. She liked fish better though. Then what, though? Look for Toothless some more? If no one had found him yet he either somehow wasn't on the island anymore or simply didn't want to be found. The trail of sent she had tried to follow would be stale by now, obviously. It was far too late to go back and find out if she had somehow missed something. Unless it was something obvious she had missed in her frantic following of the trail.

Fluffing her wings out she let out a snort of air. Well, first thing was first, getting out. If she couldn't get out, she wouldn't be able to do any of that. Echo crouched, analyzing the distance. It would need a running start. She could get a boost from the sideways log that kept two of the big doors shut. Then it would be a matter of squeezing out. Alright. She could do this. She could do this.

Her ears pinned back. She sprang forward. She kicked off the log. And managed to get some of herself through one of the sideways rungs. 'Some' being one front leg and her head. Her back legs were barely able to keep themselves up on the thin crust of stone that was on the inside, scrambling a little to stay. Well. She could work with this.

With a few grunts of effort, a couple of internal swears, and lot of squirming, and squeezing, and wriggling, Echo managed to pull herself out from the arena. She was free! She almost couldn't believe she had managed that! Shaking herself she lifted her head and tasted the air. Now that she was out of that circular prison, she could focus on getting food.

Echo stalked around the human village once she had found it. Surely they had something lying around she could snatch without a problem. There was certainly some fish in big bowl like structures. Lots of fish actually. But it reeked of so many other dragons and smells. And she wasn't that desperate for food yet. So she continued her search. She did find sheep, and mentally bookmarked where they were just in case she didn't find anything better. It was food, but she really didn't like that the fleece always got caught in her teeth and tickled her throat when she could have a cool, scaly fish instead.

The night fury prowled some more until she found some wooden paths that lead down towards long half-bridges that went out into the water where they kept their boats. Maybe there was something eatable down there. Echo had to avoid a couple humans walking with torches on her way to where she could start her descent

Looks like luck happened to be on her side, though. She wasn't noticed, but that wasn't the luck she needed, she was stealthy enough as it was. What was lucky was several open barrels of fish still left at the dock. Strange, she thought to herself, though she did snag a few just from the top of one. Why leave it out in the open like this? But that wasn't particularly her problem. Easy free food was pretty welcome to her mind at the moment, even if normally she would hiss at the idea of taking any food from humans in any way at all.

As she swallowed a third fish, which would be her last for now until she got another chance to eat something, a breeze came up from off the wooden planks that carried a... suspicious scent. Suspicious because, well, it shouldn't be there. The she-fury turned her attention from the barrels of fish, ears perking up while her pupils dilated in curiosity and confusion.

Slowly, she slipped off the dock and onto the sand, carefully making sure not to loose her silent footing on the shifting grains of rock and seastuff. The scent was that of... Toothless. Which didn't make any sense at all. Because everyone had searched the island, she was sure of it. There was no way he was just hiding down here.

In the dark she paused to sniff something that clicked against her claw. A scale. A night fury scale. Something that was, most likely, a Toothless scale. What was that doing all the way over here? The scent trail had been all the way up in the woods behind the village, no where near this beach. Besides, the nadder would have smelt this by now. Still, Echo followed the new scent she had located. She needed to figure this out or it would drive her mad. What in the hidden kingdom was going on here?

After following a very, very long way along the beach she finally stiffened up and crouched down. She heard voices. Human ones. Slinking forward a little more and peeking around a jutting rock she spotted light spilling out of a cave and crouched down even further to try and listen in to whatever was being talked about.

"Are we sure waiting here for this long is a good idea? Especially with a catch this good. We should leave while we're ahead of everything. We got the one she wanted, no sense in staying here and risking getting caught by an entire island of dragon riding Vikings."

"Not all of them are actually good at dragon riding, though. If we wait to bait the talented ones out and catch all of them to bring back, it'll be much better for us because it'll leave this island weaker."

"Or waiting here will get us caught by their chief. Stoic is not the kind man you mess with. Especially not if he's got a whole army of dragons."

"Would you rather deal with Barb? I say we deliver extra to be extra sure our heads aren't severed to add to her creepy collection."

Echo tucked her tail and wings a little closer to herself as she listened in, growing more confused by the second. What did she know? Two, seemingly male, humans with gruff voices were arguing just inside a cave being warmed by fire that was certainly smelling of Toothless, and now that she was closer to untangle the other smells that had made it so strange, Stormfly and the two humans. Whoever was in charge of this human-dragon village was clearly someone they didn't want to fight. But they also appeared to be working for someone who they seemed to fear even more so.

"Would you two quit it already? It's the middle of the night. You're supposed to be on watch, not a debate council about what we're doing. We're going in the morning. That's orders. Now shut it, some of us are getting in what sleep we can. We already have more than just the fury."

That was a third voice. So there were at least three humans who weren't friendly. Probably more. The strong musty smell they seemed to give off wasn't telling, since humans, she found, often reeked and it wasn't helping her figure out how many there were. Wait, they were leaving in the morning? That didn't give her much time at all! Time for what, though? She didn't know. What could she do? Probably not fight whoever these people were, they already had two dragons captured, most likely outnumbered her, and almost certainly had weapons.

Could she warn the other dragons she knew? The zippleback had seemed a little... slithery when she met it. She didn't trust other dragons to trust it if she got the two headed dragon to try and send a message. Hookfang was trapped in that stone arena, which was already rather far away. The gronkle had seemed really sweet but also a rather... sleepy character. Either she would get too distressed and panicked by the news or not enough distressed and panicked by the news. Who—her thoughts were interrupted by a loud clatter inside the cave, followed by lots of shouting from plenty more than three voices, sizzling, more shouting, and finally something being flung out of the cave.

The bundle of smoking something tumbled down a rift of sand, billowing with lots of smoke as if it breathed its own fire. Or maybe like a smothering smokebreath dragon, the little pests. Then the scent hit her nose and her eyes widened with alarm and she tried to scrambled back. It was a sharp smell, almost a little rotting too. Not the best thing to have your nose hit with. Especially because she recognized what it was. Dragon root. But if she had breathed in the smoke that would... by the stars. Had she really breathed that in? While she needed to get saving other dragon things done? Had she breathed enough in for it to really matter? She clamped her jaw shut tighter when she slipped a little in the sand, still trying to back away from the smoking dragon root, trying not to make a sound as she lost her footing and tumbled right into the cloud of smoke.

Wonderful. Her sarcastic thoughts didn't quite match her erratic and panicked movements as she tried backing away again, sending more sand spraying in all directions. That would probably catch the attention of these new horrible humans, though. Also a thing she didn't want. Echo started getting herself away as fast as possible, being much less quiet this time while she stumbled, already feeling the slow tugging of the terrible plant. Was that another seaside cave? That dark patch over there?

It was but it wasn't deep, or super well hidden. But it would have to work. It needed to work if she wanted to stay hidden to have the chance of telling anyone anything about what she had found. The new bad humans were probably already looking for whatever the commotion had been outside their cave. As Echo scrunched herself into the cramped space that barely deserved to be called a cave at all and covered her head with one of her wings she could hear their voices but for some reason they were too fuzzy to hear properly. Actually, everything was getting a little fuzzy at the moment. Like moss wings smothering her thoughts out like a fire. She tried desperately to cling to consciousness but it wasn't a winning battle, and very soon the dark wings of unconsciousness took her away.

Chapter Text

Echo pushed herself out of the crevice with a grunt and landed on the sand with a soft thump, keeping her eyes closed as she just laid there for a long moment, still feeling a little out of it. Every part of her was sore and cramped, she felt like she needed to stretch past her skin and scales to even get a fraction of what she needed to feel. Cramming herself into that not-cave hadn't helped her healing wing at all either, because now it was in pain again. Hopefully she hadn't set herself back when she was almost fully healed.

She finally managed to pull herself up, stretching in every possible way she could, even very carefully with her right wing, and shaking herself out. Her spine had cracked but that wasn't enough. She snorted out the little bit of sand that had gotten into her nose and opened her eyes, immediately regretting it and closing them again when she was nearly blinded by sunlight. She forced herself to try and blink through it to adjust to the lighting she wasn't quite used to. Normally she'd be up with the soft light of the moon and the stars.

Then she froze in the middle of trying to stretch her legs out again, pupils retracting into slits of alarm. Sunlight. Morning. Echo spun where she was, sending some sand scattering with her tail, as she rushed, albeit unevenly thanks to the lingering dragon root, and leapt on top of the large rock that had been mostly shielding the cave she had spied on that night from view.

It was empty. In a desperate last attempt she dropped down and went inside to sweep through it quickly and low to the ground, ready to spring or bolt at anything that came near. Nothing. The cave had been cleaned out like a gutted fish. The smells she could untangle though certainly seemed to agree with the fact that, whoever these new horrible humans were, they had caught Toothless, Stormfly, Hiccup, and... what was that other human called, Astrid? And they were long gone by now, she realized when she stepped out of the cave again and spotted the sun already up in the middle of the sky.

What now? She couldn't fly, at least she was pretty sure she still needed at least a week of healing for her wing, and even if she could she, as fast a dragon as she was, probably had no chance of finding wherever they were being taken with the scents being mixed with the salty ocean air and everything between them and her. She couldn't do this on her own. She'd need to find more help.

Echo stopped herself when she realized she was going back to the docks where she had came down. That would be swarming with humans by now. She couldn't go there. Or could she? At this point she was pretty sure that, fine, these humans wouldn't do anything. Besides, she didn't have time to walk around the entire island and find another way up. Docks it was. Once she got up she could slink off properly to try and hide more.

Her pace quicker once more, set with urgency once again while she mentally braced herself to deal with walking among humans. Was it really worth it to go through dealing with something she actively despised for, what, two other dragons and their partners? Sure, he was another night fury, but there was probably others besides him or her. After all, it was quite the wide world, there only seemed to be so little because they were actively being hunted through the archipelago and, to be frank, islands weren't the best home for her kind. Maybe a couple packs that rotated through different island territories, sure, but not their whole species.

She let out a frustrated sigh. But he had done a lot for her. He'd stayed up to go visit her on the other side of the island without being able to fly and after doing things all day for multiple weeks at this point. He'd even brought her food occasionally, when she was clearly not having luck with the few fish that inhabited the cove. He'd comforted her when she was scared, even though she refused to say or admit it. And he was probably pretty scared right now.

She was nearing the docks now and, yes, they seemed to be covered in humans. Not as many as she'd thought there'd be, but certainly more than she'd appreciate. As she ducked her head slightly, clearly making her expression an unhappy one, and jumped up onto the wood she could already hear a couple startled Vikings gasping at her. She ignored it, growling at the ones in her way, and finding that, shockingly, when she did that, they moved. Eyes wide and all with their mouths open and everything.

It wasn't half as bad as she expected either. Clearly her expression was doing what she wanted it to, that and her clear growls, keeping humans out of her way while she made her way up the planks to the village. When Echo made it to the village she did quickly prowl away to the edges and shadows where she could hide a little better. Who could she ask for help? Unfortunately, the only dragon that came to mind was that monstrous nightmare, Hookfang. He had seemed to have a slightly inflated ego, then again most nightmares did, but at least competent.

Lifting her nose to the air she found it extremely difficult to single out smells in this village. There were dragons, humans, sheep, yaks, smells of everything too. As she tried sneaking around she was stopped in her tracks when a terrible terror zipped past her in the air and hit into the wall of the human nest-building she had been hiding behind. Echo watched it with a mild look of surprise as it scamped to right itself on the ground, then noticed that it had something odd attached to its back leg.

"Hey," she reached forward to poke the little green and orange dragon with one claw, ducking her head to be closer to its level. "What's that you have on your talon?"

"S-something very imp-p-portant!" The smaller reptile said with great authority considering she could probably kill it with a well placed blow to the head, puffing up its chest indignantly and speaking with that little chattery stutter almost every terrible terror seemed to have. She looked at it seeming unimpressed.

"Yeah, but what is it?"

"A l-letter for the ch-ch-chief of this village!" It squeaked. Chief? So that would be the human in charge, right? And if all the humans here had at least one special dragon they rode... it would be safe to assume that this 'chief' had a dragon that would have a more respected status too, right? A dragon that maybe she could talk to and inform about the situation? While she had been thinking the terror had gotten itself into position the get into flight again.

"Where could I find this chief?" Echo inquired, stepping gently on the end of its tail to keep it from flying away, just for now.

"Right now he's i-i-in front of the g-great h-h-hall! Are you d-d-done now? I have v-very important b-b-business to do. Very imp-portant!" Echo rolled her eyes slightly as she stepped back from the terrible terror.

"Yes, little creature. Go deliver whatever it is you have to deliver. I don't care anymore." She said, while getting back to crouching in order to prowl the edge of the village. She could probably find the chief herself. And clearly the dragons here didn't like being far from their human companions, so she should be able to find whoever his or her dragon partner easily.

Her logic checked out smoothly, as she eventually made it towards the shadows of some human built nests and spotted a large man in the center of a cleared part of land before a staircase that lead to some big doors in the mountain that the island held. He had a large red-orange beard and was clearly built for and hardened by battle, but he held a sense of authority and didn't look stupid. He stood giving orders to other Vikings around him while a large green and red rumble horn sat grimly beside him. That would be the one she wanted to talk to.

She liked rumble horns. Well, 'liked' as much as she could like another kind of dragon. They were serious, hard working dragons. They certainly understood how the world worked and what they needed to do in it. That she could respect. And it helped that they were intelligent too, with great instincts and a sense of nature around them.

"Psst! Green rumble horn!" She hissed between her teeth while staying low to the ground and in the shadows. Lucky her, they also had good hearing, and the large dragon turned his head in a placid way in her direction, clearly feeling no urgency at the moment. Echo flicked her tail and lifted her head slightly to meet his eyes then subtly motioned for him to come over. The rumble horn looked back to his human for a moment before getting up and walking calmly towards her.

"You're another night fury." His voice was deep and, well, rumbling, as he finally got within a respectable distance and sat once again. "I heard Toothless and Hiccup speaking of you. Good to see that you're finally getting a little better, if I heard correctly about your injured wing." Echo straightened herself up with the rumble horn blocking her from the view of most people.

"Yes, thank you." She flexed her wing a little and glanced at it. "It's still... not in the best condition, but dragons heal fast. That's not what I'm here about though. Has the news of Hiccup, Toothless, and two others missing gotten to you?"

"We heard about Toothless before Hiccup, Astrid, and Stormfly went searching for him. We've simply assumed that Hiccup did not wish to rest until he found his best friend. Stormfly is a good dragon, very skilled, very smart. I'm sure we have not much to fear for them. Why do you bring this up?"

"Because you do have reason to fear for them." Echo replied simply, "Last night I caught a scent and followed it to a cave with humans that didn't seem like they were supposed to be on this island. Toothless and the others I could smell inside that cave. I would have done something, found someone, sooner, but they accidentally burned some dragon root and tossed it out of the cave where it got to me before I could get away. They said something about leaving in the morning. This, I am afraid, is far past morning." As she had spoken the rumble horn's expression changed to one of stoic concern.

"That is something indeed..." the beetle-like dragon rumbled low in his throat, shaking his head and causing his big scales to clink together. "Thank you for informing me..."

"Echo." She filled in when he left the sentence open for her.

"Thank you for informing me, Echo. I'll get Stoic to pay attention and have you lead me to the cave. I'll be able to find them." He gave her a nod. She was in the middle of breathing a 'thank you' when a loud voice called from the human the rumble horn had been sitting by. The rumble horn's name, at least that's what she thought he had said. Something along the lines of 'skull crusher.' The green dragon turned to face his companion enough for Echo to see what was happening as well and she spotted the same green and orange terrible terror perched on the chief's shoulders while he held a small thin piece of something that had little black squiggles on it. The human's expression was thunderous.

Chapter Text

Dear Stoic the Vast, Chief of Berk.

You do not know who I am, nor do I care to inform you of such a thing. All you need to hear is that I have something of yours that I'm sure you'll want back, and for now, all you need to know is that your son and his dragon are safe for now. Alive, for now. And that if you want to see him again you'll keep yourself, your people, and your dragons confined to your island. I'll know if you do otherwise. And all you need to know about me for now, is that your can't outmatch my fire power. I'll be sending word once I decide on my exact terms, but until then, Chief, I suggest you just wait. And remember, I have your son, so don't try anything. If you just comply then everything will go much, much smoother for the both of us.

Regards,

—B

Barb went over the letter in her mind again while she sat rigidly in the captain's quarters of a large ship, tapping her fingers on a desk. Dealing with Vikings was always so tedious. They could never follow any simple instructions. 'I have your son, don't try to save him or I'll blow him up with fire, wait for my terms to give him back.' And then they'd be surprised when she went through with her word after they refused to comply.

This time was a little different, though. Berk. Before, Berk would have been easy to deal with. Just another Viking village. But not anymore. Who would have guessed that Stoic's scrawny, useless son wasn't so useless after all? Finding and befriending a protective night fury now that was certainly something. Especially since Grimmel and claimed to have killed them all, the egotistical bastard.

She'd be keeping the night fury, of course. But these people wouldn't just let that happen. She knew that well. Her uncle, who she hadn't contacted since she had been able to go off on her own, Viggo, had died interacting with these people for too long. They were smart, at least this Hiccup kid was. And dragons were dangerous.

They were technically not in her possession just yet. Still being shipped over. But she had left very clear instructions. Keep them unconscious. Only give them water when they're waking up before putting them back under. Keep the dragons muzzled and caged at all times. Keep the people chained at all times. She wasn't making any mistakes.

Behind her she felt a nose nudge her arm and she twisted to glance at the dragon who had tried getting her attention. A blue and black slithersong curled tightly on the ground to fit inside Barb's chambers looked up at her with its large yellow eyes. Barb looked at her dragon, unimpressed.

Not right now. She signed with an eye roll, looking back at her desk and tapping it once more, in thought. She felt the dragon nudge her again anyway and she turned to glare at it with an exasperated expression. What do you want. She watched as the animal opened and closed its mouth a few times, rounding its pupils pitifully.

It is not time for food. She saw the dragon's throat shake a little, clearly the beast making some kind of sound, as it twisted where it lay so that it's belly was facing up and it let its tongue drop out of its mouth. Barb rolled her eyes again and turned back to what she was doing. It wasn't long before she saw the dragon right itself again from the corner of her eye, and push itself over so that its face was right next to hers, as if curious as to what she was doing.

Barb sat there for another long few minutes getting nothing done before grunting to herself and standing up. She wasn't getting anything accomplished. At least not for tonight. She grabbed her helmet and pulled it over her face, letting the black and blue cover her real features. She liked her mask. It kept members of her crew guessing. Questioning. Fearing. That was good. They needed to be afraid, because if they weren't then they'd be more likely to slack off somehow. And she couldn't deal with any of that. She kept things very strict for a reason. She wasn't going to have anything happen that she didn't know about, and she wasn't going to have anyone mess anything that she was planning up.

Her slithersong twisted fluidly to face the door patiently as Barb grabbed a long spear and gave the dragon a nod. It nosed the door open and crawled out, its ruff of scaly wing membrane by its head opening while Barb followed the swift dragon, watching through the eyeholes of the mask while the men on the ship stopped what they were doing for a moment, saw her, and went back to whatever it was that they were doing faster. Avoiding any eye contact they might be able to manage with her or the slithersong.

Barb let the tip of her spear drag behind her on the wooden planks of the ship while she walked slowly and deliberately. Her slithersong scamped before her, pausing sometimes to open its mouth, probably hissing quietly, then continuing to the bow of the ship, where the dragon perched and tasted the air ahead. When Barb made it there as well, very careful to keep her pace slow and unhurried, she looked to the horizon. It was dark, the crescent moon and stars the only light, as the ship moved through rolling waves. Somewhere out there was the island of Berk. That would be the next place she'd take. Maybe the outcasts after them. That shouldn't need this kind of bargaining and planning. Then Berserker island. Mala's island. The "wing maidens" so they called themselves. But Berk needed to be the first. Then everything else could crumble fast. For Vikings and warriors, they sure were dependent on the acts of dragons.

Her eyes flickered to her slithersong. That was ok. She could deal with dragons. And everyone knew, the best way to deal with dragons, was with other dragons. Dragons who ate other dragons especially. Because they wouldn't be fast to befriend any peace seeking humans trying to sway their will.

Chapter Text

Hiccup's head was pounding. His throat felt dry and the salty tang of the dank air he breathed in wasn't helping. His body felt heavy when he tried to move at first, and he didn't bother opening his eyes just yet. The soft rocking and splintery wood beneath him reminded him that he was on a ship. Where was he going again? He wasn't sure.

He groaned quietly and tried sitting up, only managing to do so for a little before he needed to lay back down again, staring up at the ceiling and the small cracks he could see sunlight through. He was pretty sure he'd been caught by hunters. Astrid and Stormfly too.

Looking to the side of the cell he was inside he could see a nadder muzzled and chained, metal rings around its tail to keep it from being able to shoot any spines and it's wings clamped shut too in order to keep it from being problematic, in the sense that it could barely move to try if it wanted to. But it wasn't Stormfly. This deadly nadder was purple and yellow rather than sky blue, and it crouched pitifully on the ground.

Managing to roll onto his side Hiccup pulled himself closer to the bars of the cell, using them to pull and prop himself up while trying to get a better look at the area. He remembered that every time he woke up there was usually a bell, then someone would come, force him to quickly drink some water, then poke him with something sharp and everything would go black again.

He and Astrid had been flying along the coast, Stormfly taking charge of the flying after clearly catching a scent when they went to where Echo had lost the trail she had evidently been following, when they had spotted an unfamiliar ship anchored on the island. They had tried to get off Stormfly a little up ways to sneak down but whoever these hunters were had been ready for them, apparently, maybe having seen the nadder while they had been in the sky.

Hiccup heard the sound of that little bell again and tried to peer up the hall between the cells to what it was. It looked like there was a small bell inside an hourglass of some kind, when the sand ran out the bell would fall too and make a sound. It was a pretty muffled sound, thanks to the sand though, so he was wondering how it would alert anyone of anything when he noticed the guard sitting on the stairs beside it that led on deck.

The man, who seemed to have been dozing, looked up and blinked, shaking himself before standing and about to grab something before hesitating and going up the steps for a moment. Hiccup heard a muffled conversation before the guard came down and grabbed the two cups of water that had been set on a barrel where the hourglass stood, walking over to Hiccup and setting it down within reach outside of the cell.

"Drink, boy. Wake up a little more, pull yourself together." He said gruffly, "You have to at least be able to stand when we hand you off to Barb. It's easier than carrying you to a different ship, skinny or not." Then he moved on further down and said something similar to someone who Hiccup could only assume was Astrid. "Drink, boy!" He said again when he passed Hiccup on his way to the stairs, not bothering with resetting the hourglass on his way out.

With no other option, and being parched, Hiccup slowly reached through the bars for the water, bringing it to himself and drinking most of it in relief. Blinking and shaking his head he once again used the bars to haul himself up again. It looked like he wouldn't be going unconscious again. At least for now. Apparently these hunters wanted presentable catches for whoever this 'Barb' person was.

He glanced down when he heard clinking when he moved again and realized his foot was chained to the wall. These people really didn't want to be taking any chances, did they? And now that he thought about it, these hunters seemed familiar. In their uniforms, anyway. They looked the same as the dragon hunters who had worked for Riker and Vigo.

"Hiccup, are you there?" He heard Astrid call, her voice seeming gravely from lack of use.

"Yeah," he cleared his throat and sipped the water again, "Yes, I'm here. Are you ok?"

"Mostly. Starving, though, and my head hurts pretty bad."

"Yeah, me too." Now that he was more awake he was starting to scan the area for anything he could use to do something. He felt the ship slowing and spotted a small hole in the wood of the ship on the wall of his cell and immediately went to it, stumbling slightly, clearly still effected by whatever it was that they had drugged him with.

Looking out he saw that the ship was coming in to dock at an island that, from what he could see of the docks themselves, seemed to be swarming with dragon hunters. As the ship came to a stop Hiccup pulled away from the eye hole he'd found, getting back to the bars.

"It looks like they're bringing us to a home base they have for themselves." He said. "There are hunters everywhere, but if we—" He was cut off by the stomp of boots and rattle of chains as some hunters went down into the belly of the ship again, one stopping at Hiccup's cell while the other continued down to Astrid's. He swung the door open after using a key to click open the lock and entered, going back to the chain that kept Hiccup to the wall and yanking it suddenly, pulling his leg out from under him and causing him to fall heavily onto the ground without warning.

The hunter then grabbed the chains he had brought with him and roughly flipped Hiccup onto his back, chaining his hands together then his ankles, or as best he could chain his ankles with a missing foot, and linking them together with another long chain clearly meant for dragging Hiccup along.

"No talking." He threatened while unlocking the chain that kept Hiccup to the wall of the ship and pulling him to standing. "Or else."

The daylight seemed far too bright as Hiccup and Astrid were led out of the belly of the ship and onto the deck, but the hunters didn't stop to wait for them, just pulling them along and off the ship. As they were half dragged forward Hiccup managed to look around, seeing the other ships that were docked. He saw dragons being unloaded from another that had clearly just stopped by, fishing nets as well, dangling in the waters. There seemed to be a trading ship too, even, which seemed strange until he remembered that, unfortunately, "dragon hunting" was a form of business.

He and Astrid were tugged away from the docks and up a path that led towards what seemed to be, surprisingly, a village. That was certainly odd. Normally the dragon hunters only had camps set up. Temporary places to be. And the way the hunters in the village seemed to be patrolling around made it seem more like they had taken over this island and were keeping its inhabitants at bay. He didn't really get time to dwell on this however, as they were brought through and past the village towards the woods.

It took a very long time of hiking through rocky, wooded terrain, as well as half way up a mountain the island had, before they came to a door that was crafted into a neatly paneled cave entrance, the cave mouth itself covered with neat wooden planks around the door like a home. One of the hunters knocked and there was a long moment of silence before a muffled reply came from inside, an invite of some kind, to open the door.

The hunter at the door did so, and the other that had accompanied them pushed Hiccup and Astrid inside. It took a moment for Hiccups eyes to get used to the dim, fire lit inside of the cave, but when they did he saw that this part seemed to be a study of some kind, and someone was sitting in a chair facing a desk with many scattered papers, gently tapping a stick with charcoal on the end of it as if thinking.

"Put them over there. Lock the door. Then you may go." The person said, pointing to the other end of the room where two cells had been carved into the cave wall, big enough for dragons but with small enough bars even terrible terrors wouldn't be able to escape. Hiccup and Astrid were shoved towards the cells, and had to swap out the chains on their limbs for different ones inside the cells before the dragon hunters left, shutting the door behind them.

"Excuse me, what is this?" Astrid was the first to speak, immediately after the door was shut. "Who do you think you people are?"

"We seem to have captured you and your dragon just fine, so someone better than you, for one." The person at the desk replied, twisting in the chair to look at them. She had dark eyes and tan skin, as well as frizzy black hair that was half heartedly kept out of her face with a pair of what looked like goggles. She wore red dragon skin as clothes, maybe from a changewing? Hiccup wasn't sure, but he thought it was terrible that someone would do that. Sure, dragon scales were useful, but this was the skin too. Some poor dragon had been killed to make it.

"Are you who they were talking about bringing us to? Barb? Is it?" Hiccup tried, before Astrid would say something to get them into deeper trouble.

"No, Barb is still on her way." The woman replied. Older than them, seemingly, though by only a couple of years. "I'm Nessy. Top inventor of most things under Barb's operations."

"Inventor?"

"Scientist, whatever word you want to use. I experiment, I come up with ideas, I experiment some more, I make something, I tell everyone else how to make it, I get paid, easy peasy. Especially because barely any Vikings have seen past dragons uses other than large house pet or work horse."

"And what do you mean by that?"

"Bottling changewing acid, glassblowing deathsong amber, feeding dragons poison things slowly over time to see if it can effect their abilities like making nadder spines poison too or something, seeing how different ways of controlling the dragons work best, seeing if any of those ways work on humans, what dragon scales can be melted and forged into weapons, what other things could gronkles create by melting rocks together if they can make gronkles iron, all that kind of stuff."

"That's horrible!" Astrid cut in, "Why would you be doing any of that?"

"Did you not hear the part about I get paid? Besides, Barb's my main best friend. Well, she likes to act pretty cold and distant a lot of the time, especially since that incident with that one dragon like ten years ago, but we're totally friends."

"Well, who is Barb then? What should we know about her?" Once again Hiccup took control of the conversation in order to try and not let Astrid's temper put them into a worse position, no matter how much he agreed with her.

"Hmm, good question. I mean, what should't you know about her, am I right?" Nessy chuckled while turning back to her desk. "Hmmmmm, well, she's the daughter of this hunter guy named Riker. Real scary dude, by the way, totally dead now though so I wouldn't worry about it. Or her creepy uncle who used to be in charge of everything. With basically everyone dead who was in charge Barb took over since she saw her chance to do so and she's been doing a great job. Productivity has been up and everything with her menacing presence and scary dragon. And of course she hired me to a real high rank so I wasn't stuck in loser training or something like that."

"Wait wait, dragon? What dragon?" Hiccup said, furrowing his brow. He thought only Krogan had known how to do that with the singe tales, and with him gone, hunters with dragon power wouldn't be an issue anymore.

"I think it's called a slithersong..." Nessy mused, "Could be wrong, though. Something related to a deathsong, anyway. Epic partnership, in my opinion. Dragon who can hypnotize other dragons or drive people and dragons insane plus Barb and her over dramatic self? Total power duo. Actually, I keep nagging her to get hunters on the lookout for more of those dragons. If they can get their roar to drive a Viking mad, and drive dragons mad, and they can use their roar to also hypnotize dragons, they should be able to pitch their song to get humans too right? That was my thought process, but Barb never stays long enough for me to see if I can get her dragon to do anything." As Nessy was talking there was a thump outside the door of the cave, causing her to stop while the door was pushed open.

Chapter Text

The door to the mouth of the cave was pushed open to reveal a figure wearing black and blue dragon armor, a helmet covering any features from view to make whoever was under there recognizable. In their hand, they held a long spear with a jagged bone white spear tip on the end, the shaft stained black somehow while three long brown and white feathers were tied below the spear tip, along with a small chain of tiny glass beads, some more of which were imbedded in the black wood of the shaft.

There was a long cold silence before the person took a few measured steps into the room, the head of a dragon poking as well from the door. It definitely looked like it was related to a deathsong from what Hiccup could see. Long skinny horns, long skinny body, butterfly like wings he glimpsed from the sliver of doorway he could see that wasn't blocked. The dragon just had a shorter, rounder face and blue and black colours.

"You're Barb, aren't you?" Hiccup was the first to speak. "I don't know much about you, but please, don't hurt our dragons. They're completely innocent, and so are we. You look like you have one of your own, you understand that they are beautiful and helpful creatures, don't you?"The figure slowly turned to face him about halfway through what he was saying, regarding him quietly before replying.

"The dragons. Yes. They are helpful. And beautiful. In their own right. We will not kill yours, if that is your worry." Her words were said slowly, deliberately, and with some slight accent he wasn't sure he quite knew. "But you. I cannot make the same promise." Those next words made him freeze.

"Why not? You have my night fury, isn't that what you hunters wanted?"

"Hunters? They are hunters. I am of a different mind. And I seek different goals. I had a father who was a hunter, and an uncle who was a business man. They were both correct, I suppose. And both wanted money. My uncle understood that too much power would eventually leave one board. I too know this. However. Our archipelago is small. And full of dragons. If I could have that, I could maximize efficiency. Make deals. Make money. And be entertained by the world of business outside of here."

A father who was a hunter and an uncle who was a business man... two brothers, perhaps? Two brothers like... no, it could be different. There could be way too many different options for that. Maybe she was emphasizing things to seem bigger than they were, maybe this uncle she had was a farmer or something. Still, when Hiccup looked at Astrid through the bars that separated their two cells he saw the same look on her face.

"Are you talking about Ryker and Viggo, by chance?" Hiccuped asked, carefully. "Because Viggo died knowing dragons were more than merchandise. He saved me—and Toothless, after befriending a skrill. He was one of the bravest, smarted men I know. Maybe you could make a difference from his legacy."

"His legacy was the business Johann stole." Barb replied. Not a snap, just another slow, careful sentence. "I intend to make it bigger."

"What about your dragon, the one behind you. You care about that dragon don't you? Why not care about all of them if you see how amazing they are already."

"Harmony?" Barb didn't turn to look at the dragon behind herself, continuing to watch Hiccup through the tiny eye slits in the mask. "She understands. She knows what I do. She helps me. She calls over dragons, and gets to eat her portion as payment. If I need her to, she drives people mad." Barb tipped her spear down and tapped it on the ground in a quick but specific pattern and from the corner of his eye Hiccup spotted Nessy covering her ears with a smile. 'Harmony' seemed to know what it meant and a low, resonating, sound came from the dragon, reverberating around the room. It took a second but then Hiccup started noticing how to made his head pound a little, and his ears start ringing strangely. Then Barb tapped the spear again and the dragon quieted. Hiccup knew, clearly, that this was a warning.

"You can't just take over the archipelago to turn it into a business." Hiccup insisted, firmly, despite the threats that Barb evidently didn't care for his life in whatever it was she was doing and was more than willing to kill him. Or drive him mad, apparently.

"Hopefully, I'm going to."

"Why aren't you going to kill our dragons, then?" Astrid finally spoke up, her tone sharp as she stared Barb down from inside her cell. "Sell their scales, or whatever it is you do?"

"They serve use. Your nadder is trained, as is his night fury. Curious specimens. Maybe easier for my friend here, whom I'm sure has already introduced herself, to use. And she'll want the night fury anyway."

"They won't be easier to deal with. Harder, if anything. They don't like being caged, and they don't like it if we're in danger. They will be fighting you every step of the way."

"Maybe." Then Barb turned from them, shutting down the conversation where it was apparently, and looking to Nessy. "What have you done so far, Nessori?" Barb asked the other woman who had uncovered her ears now and smiled even wider while getting up from her seat.

"I'm so glad you asked, Barbie, come on let me show you." Nessy sounded excited and all together too relaxed in the menacing, icy presence of Barb as the self-proclaimed inventor threw an arm around Barb's shoulders to begin leading her down the tunnel that kept going from the back of the cave, making weird hand motions while she spoke and leaving Hiccup and Astrid chained where they were, with the 'slithersong' dragon still in the doorway, now watching them with dark blue eyes as if daring—hoping, even—for them to do something so she would get the chance to have a snack.

Chapter Text

Echo didn't exactly know what was happening, only that the rumblehorn had been refusing to leave the island with his human and was ensuring other dragons remained as well. She'd asked him, of course, and he said something about smelling a dangerous dragon on it, which didn't help her much at all. What did help her, was that her wing was better. More or less. And she could fly again. Finally. Finally feel the mist of clouds and the breezy updrafts and hear the wind in her ears. But she, against most of her better judgement, wasn't flying away from this strange, human-dragon friendly island.

Because, even though she could fly, it didn't help a lot at the moment since, well, she couldn't fly to rescue Toothless, or Stormfly, or their humans, because she didn't know where to go. Also, supposedly, a very dangerous dragon that could make her go insane or something. Not helpful. But, if she was sneaky, maybe she could get there anyway. She was good at getting around unnoticed, wasn't she? Certainly. All she needed was someone to show her where to go...

It was night, and Echo was circling curiously outside of the chief's home, poking at the blocked entrances with her nose to try and find a way in. She couldn't ask the rumblehorn. He wouldn't agree and he was probably still needed to ensure none of his dragons on the island went into danger. But she did recall that annoying terrible terror having brought the message that started it all being brought into this human nest. A terrible terror that might know its way back to wherever it had been sent from.

She narrowed her eyes curiously at the block of an entrance she'd found on the back of the human nest, scrutinizing it. She'd tried pawing at it, and it didn't swing in. But from what she'd spied around the cluster of human nests, their strange little flat wood blockades usually didn't. They swung outward. Carefully she tilted her head and tried to get a grip on the little metal bit that humans grabbed onto with her teeth and pulled back. It worked! Sort of, anyway. Echo found herself needing to pull back in an arc instead of straight backwards but the thing was open now, and she could get inside the strange, man-made cave of wood.

She prowled as best she could within the first few steps and immediately found it filled with small things that could move if she accidentally touched them. She kept her breathing and her noise very quiet as she scanned around the area. She spotted the rumblehorn, asleep in a corner, and tensed before carefully moving backwards and getting out again. She was going to try again, this wasn't her failing, she made herself promise that, she was just going to be invisible when she did it.

She kept backing away from the wooden structure to be what she felt was far enough away, then turned and leapt into the air. Her heart jumped like it had the last day when she'd first tried flying again, but in the best way. Feeling the air catch under her wings and both of them work together to pull her up into the jeweled night sky was one of the best things she'd felt in a while after being land locked. She wanted to keep going. Keep going up, straight up, and then away from this confusing island with its herds of people loving dragons and only mildly afraid prey.

But as she gained Echo folded her wings into a swooping dive, letting her fire warm her throat before shooting it in front of her where she could feel the heat lick her skin and scales. She caught herself right before hitting the ground, brushing the grass with a claw as she did, and did a wide circle back to land again where she had found a way into the human nest. One dragon had made her suffering worth it, and much less like suffering. She might as well pay him back.

Echo knew, logically, that being invisible wouldn't matter to the rumblehorn if the great green dragon woke up, but it still made her feel better for whatever reason as she snuck back in, keeping her tail as still as possible, tail fins and wings as close kept to her body as she could make them. There was a fire, mostly burning embers now, in a little half box against one wall that was messing with her night vision not too badly. She was still able to locate the terror, sleeping comfortably right in front of that fire, snoring. She could smell the fish on its breath even from where she crouched, thinking of how best to kidnap the small dragon and get out without a commotion.

That's when she heard the noise coming from a different level of the house, somewhere above her. Pacing footsteps and human muttering, making her freeze where she was. That big man, the chief, he was still awake. What if he woke the rumblehorn? Noticed that she'd opened a way into his home? Accidentally found her? In the beginnings of her panic she also heard the footsteps getting over to... the way up, her eyes told her, spotting the hole in the wood above next the the wall and the way up to it. The way down, she supposed, spotting the shadow of the big man coming closer.

Without thinking she took the quick moment she had and pounced forward a step, grabbing the sleeping terror in her mouth like one might grab a dragonette, teeth retracted, and fled the wooden abode as quickly as she could, accidentally knocking over a stack of papers with her tail as she went but being sure to spin and knock the wooden panel shut over the way in again.

Of course at this point the dreaded terrible terror was awake and squirming annoyingly, trying to get out. Echo was already in the air though, making a wide enough arc to direct to the forest beyond the human nest that the cool air made her scales visible again. As she landed among the trees and ferns with a soft thud she dropped the smaller dragon and looked down at it, unamused as it sputtered something about 'messing with the wrong dragon' and worked up a tiny squeak of a flame.

"Quite, pipsqueak." She sniffed, crouching down slightly to be closer to its level. "I need to know where you came from."

"F-f-first of all," the terror drew itself up with the same great importance it had when she'd caught it a few days ago, "My n-n-name is n-not p-p-pipsqueak! It's F-F-Fang. And I came from a v-very r-r-respectable hive—" Echo was already annoyed with its stuttering language, letting out a long sigh through her nose.

"No, little dragon. Not your hive. I don't care about your hive. Who sent you to this island. Where do they live. Can you take me to their island." She clarified, her tail flicking behind her once, but at least that was still enough to get it through the lizard's head that she wasn't in the mood for anything extra obnoxious.

"O-oh... n-n-no no no," 'Fang' chattered, quickly understanding and shaking his head vigorously. "It's f-full of b-b-bad people. Very very bad p-p-people. H-hurt dragons, you know. I barely got out of there unscathed. S-s-sell me as a b-bag they said."

"Little dragon, as far as I'm concerned, all people are bad. Humans are terrible. End of story. I need to get to this island though, because they captured a... friend... of mine. A few, actually. And I want to get them back here, where they are safe," she paused, then tipped her head slightly at the terrible terror. "Unless of course, you're not brave enough for a rescue mission." That certainly got Fang's attention.

"I-I-I'm brave," the dragon huffed, pulling himself up again. "I'm the m-m-most brave! I can s-s-save all the dragons. H-H-Harmony and B-Barb don't s-s-scare me, you n-need m-m-me to show you? I-I'll bring you t-there m-m-myself, then you'll see!" Well then, apparently she'd found the right way to trick this small lizard into doing things.

"Lead on, little dragon. Then I'll see for myself what kind of island we're talking about." Echo said as the terror prepared to take off, wondering only vaguely about who Harmony and Barb were, and why this small dragon felt it necessary to name them specifically in it's little speech about how brave he was.

Chapter Text

Echo's wings were aching, her eyelids were heavy, and her scales were itching with the salt of the sea spray that hit her while she and Fang slowly dipped towards the water out of exhaustion. It was midday already and they'd started flying around midnight. No rest stops. No hunting. Just straight travel. She needed a break, and soon, and there was good and bad news for that. Good news? They were nearly at what seemed like was the island Fang was trying to lead her to. Bad news? It was crawling with humans. Humans with weapons. Humans with cages. Humans with masks and helmets. Dragon hunters.

The island looked large, with a mass collection of the wooden structures humans used to traverse water in a bay, and little human nests collected in the same relative area. There was a large mountain occupying the middle of the island, and the bay looked like it's lowest point as from what she could see much of the rest of it was sheer cliffs that dropped to the crashing ocean waves below. She was already far too close for comfort. It was day. She was jet black. And this, as it turned out, was looking more and more like a horrible idea.

"Little dragon," Echo called ahead to the green and orange terror flapping ahead of her. "I'm going to disappear for a while. I'll be right behind you still, so keep leading on. Maybe show me where they keep all of their prisoners. If they keep those."

"Oh yes yes," Fang stuttered back, "T-they keep p-p-prisoners. I know the way, j-j-just follow me!" Echo flew up to a decent hight and fired her plasma, tucking her wings to dive through the heat and only catching herself when just above the water, the air hitting her wings and lifting her up again to continue her flight behind the terrible terror, just... invisibly. More safely. Still, the closer they grew to the island the more she started hating her idea to even go there.

Too late now, Echo. You've done it this time. Maybe caring about a dragon is going to get you killed this time, wouldn't that be something her mind thought though she tried to beat those feelings down. She was better than that anyway. Sneaking around? That's something she could do easily. Nothing bad was going to happen. All she had to do was find Toothless and Stormfly, then Stormfly could find their human companions and they could get out. Easy as catching a blind mouse. When they finally touched down, adjacent to the actual collection of human nests thankfully, Fang looked back to try and see her.

"B-b-bigger dragon?" He asked curiously, clearly smelling her, but not quite seeing her.

"Still here, like I said. Keep going." She assured him, causing the terror to stare suspiciously up at where her voice had come from for a long moment before crouching to the ground and beginning to scuttle ahead, over the stone of the cliffs and to the wooded area where he was actually relatively hidden by the grass.

It felt great not to be using her wings after that ridiculously long flight, but unfortunately she was still very tired from it anyway. Her tail quietly swished behind her as she walked patiently behind the scampering smaller dragon, and he surprisingly led her not to the large area of wooden human built things, but just to a human built path that cut through the forest, leading to the mountain.

"T-t-this m-mountain was a v-v-volcano." Fang was saying knowledgeably ahead of her while strutting on the very edge of the path, low to the ground. "A-a-all the l-lava hollowed out a b-b-bunch of tunnels and c-c-caves. T-t-that's where they keep other d-d-dragons. W-w-we're hopefully n-n-not going to the t-t-top ones. That's where they exp-p-periment. M-m-make dragons eat p-p-poison and e-e-e-eelsss." Echo wrinkled her nose in a silent snarl at the word that Fang hissed out last. Eels. Disgusting, writhing little creatures that made dragons sick. Very sick. Unless of course, that dragon was a typhoomerang, who ate them to get on a high that upped their firepower and energy.

Why would anyone be experimenting on dragons? What would they even need to experiment on? She'd seen humans that wore dragon skins, used dragon bones a decorations or even weapons, so obviously they were viewed as a resource, but what use would feeding dragons poison do? If Fang was right about that, anyway. He seemed to have a habit of blowing things up from proportion, from what she'd seen. Maybe it wasn't experimentation at all, just where they'd kill dragons to not damage their hide—which wasn't a more comforting thought, but a more realistic one at least.

"I-i-in here." Fang directed after they reached the end of the winding path that stopped at the gaping mouth of a cave, lit by torches a little further in. As they entered the dry, musty smelling cave Echo kept looking back, mostly out of habit. That was the one way out, as far as she knew, and something might come up behind them to block them in. They kept going though, and soon bars started appearing on the walls, closing off caves with dragons inside, mouths muzzled shut, wings clamped, and talons chained to the walls it looked like they could barely move they way they were kept.

This area looked like it only contained monstrous nightmares, Echo noted, as she peered into every cage to be sure she didn't miss anyone. This place was terrible, she was realizing that more and more with every step she took on the island. Almost all of these dragons looked like their eyes were dull, the thought of hope no longer existent. Most of them barely even glanced up at the terror sneaking on the edges of the cave floor, who to them must have seemed like he was talking to himself along the way in a rather terrible whisper.

"T-t-this is just the holding area, m-mostly. They have a whole b-b-bunch of other places, l-l-like where they f-fatten dragons up and m-make them all sh-sh-shiny. O-o-or the forges wh-where they force gronkles to e-e-eat rocks a-a-all the t-time and spit it a-all out." Fang paused where they were when they made it to an intersection of the cave, looking both ways before confidently taking the path that tilted up slightly.

"Slow down little dragon..." Echo murmured very softly, making Fang pause up ahead to look back at her. It looked like these cages were slowly getting to be more of nadders than nightmares.

"I-i-is one of your f-f-friends here?" He asked, blinking in her general direction.

"I'm not sure," her disembodied voice seemed to be getting more slight attention from these defeated looking dragons, but she was sure the nadders could clearly smell the distinct two dragons better than the nightmares could. "But she might be... just go a little slower so I can be sure." She kept her voice down still, worried there might be some less than friendly human to hear it as they made their way through these new rows of captured dragons. Echo was starting to not like the way her normally sound 'look out for yourself only' morals were squirming in this situation when she nearly passed by a cage with a blue and yellow deadly nadder.

"Little dragon," she hissed quietly, once again making Fang halt before he scampered too far ahead while she peered through the bars to try and figure out whether or not this dragon was Stormfly, or just a similar looking dragon. She'd already gotten this dragon's attention when she had hissed towards Fang, and could clearly tell that this one hadn't been beaten down like the others.

"W-w-what?" Fang backtracked until he knocked into Echo's still kind of invisible scales, though the effects were wearing off quickly, pausing to peer through the bars.

"Stormfly, is that you?" Echo cautiously asked, causing the nadder to immediately stand up and bob her head up and down a few times, stopping to stare curiously at Echos' blue eyes that probably looked like they were floating. "It's Echo. The um... other night fury. I'm here to get you out, I just need to find everyone else first and then... figure out how to."

Stormfly responded with a quick huff of air and standing up as tall as she could, pointing her nose straight up at the ceiling before dropping back to a normal stance and staring at Echo meaningfully while trying to speak around the thick metal band that kept her mouth closed. Up Echo put together after tilting her head and trying to figure out what the nadder was saying. They're up further than this.

"I'll be back, I promise." She tried to assure the blue and yellow dragon while backing up a step. "Thanks."

After that encounter every time she and Fang encountered a fork or turn in the path she tried her best to continue onto the one that seemed to go upwards. Fang seemed to be getting more and more jumpy the higher they went, nervous about getting to the top of the mountain like he had previously warned her about but immediately insisting that he wasn't scared at all when Echo reminded him that he didn't really have to do anything now and she could figure things out herself if he wanted to leave.

When they did start getting closer to the top, though, Echo noticed the order of dragons by species dwindling, getting to seem random by the time she picked up on a voice up ahead. Her first reaction was to panic, her second was quick, be invisible but that wasn't an option in a cave where someone would easily hear the sound of her fire anyway, and her final one being hide. Hide? Now there's a clever thought, where would she even be able to hide in this situation? As she backed behind the corner they had just rounded, she spotted the shadows of two humans growing closer.

Echo crouched close to the ground, trying to make herself as small as possible while peering around to see what would occur. Fang had just seemed to notice that she wasn't right behind him and was turning to look for her when the humans rounded the corner further up. At this point Echo didn't dare hiss for his attention, and even if she did it would be far too late as he'd clearly been spotted.

"Hello... who's this?" One of them jogged down the hall stepping on the tip of Fang's tail, even if the small dragon seemed frozen anyway and didn't look like he was planning to run anywhere at all. This human has darker skin than Echo was used to seeing, and wore red fine dragon skin, probably that of a change wing, for most of her—Echo was pretty sure it was a her—clothes, the rest looking like leather from what Echo could see from her spot at the corner.

The other human looked more worrying though. Black and blue scales covered practically all of her in what looked like light, agile armor. A matching mask obscured her face and Echo could see a spear dragging behind them as they walked after their companion very slowly, their companion who had picked up Fang and moved back to meet up with their armored friend, lifting him and looking at him from a few different angles in the fire light.

"Did you escape, little friend?" The one without armor was asking, lifting and moving one of his wings as if checking for any markings of previous imprisonment.

"No." The one with armor spoke, interrupting their curios partner, tilting their head down to look closely at Fang. "I sent this one. We took it from Berk a while ago when first scouting it out. I sent it back recently with a message for their chief." A long silence followed.

"Sooooo... does this mean you're cutting our visit short?" The one wearing red dragon skin finally asked.

"For now. I'll return later. You can experiment on the girl if you want, but the chief's son stays intact. As with his dragon. Don't touch the night fury for now." That response got a long dramatic sigh from the human without armor as they both turned to make their way back up the hall they came from. The night fury! Echo was thinking, her tail flicking behind her and accidentally brushing stone wall next to her. Toothless! And what sounded like two humans. 'The girl' they mentioned had to be Astrid, right? Since they referred to the night fury belonging to 'the chief's son.' When they rounded the corner, still carrying Fang with them, Echo began slinking quietly down the tunnel again, more careful than before this time, and staying as low as possible.

Unfortunately, she realized, it looked like Fang hadn't been exaggerating when he talked about them feeding dragons poison near the higher caves. In fact, it looked like he hadn't exaggerated enough. Echo was now actively trying not to look too long in the cages that lined the walls, since what was in them seemed horrible.

Dragons with dilated pupils standing blankly and looking so out of it Echo wasn't sure they even knew they had restraints on, others that looked starved but still desperately pressed to the back corner of their small area to avoid the dead eels placed in with them, more still that seemed to be trying to pace, looking extremely agitated. The strange smells weren't helping either, some sharp, some disgustingly sweet, some damp, it was like all her senses were being assaulted.

She halted right at the end of another passageway, peeking out when she noticed the daylight and catching just a glimpse of a black and blue tail disappearing before wood closed off the day and fresh air again, the human with no armor and messed up black hair on her head wandering over and sitting down just where she was still technically visible from where Echo was at the end of the tunnel. And that's when Echo spotted Toothless just two cages up the hall.