Of Axes and Dragons

Dark times ahead

All she could remember was dark, cold and painful. She had been flying for so long. She was exhausted, but fear ran in her blood, poisoning her heart with every rushed pump. Further, faster, keep flying. For everytime she stopped, another dark, gruesome memory haunted her already tired mind. Enough has been said about her species. Light furies, or furies in general, the most dangerous and vicious of dragons, and the most valued by dragon hunters. 

Any other dragon would've been caught and skinned by now, but not her. She knew when to fly and when to attack. She was also an expert in hiding. She'd known one too many dragon hunters. She'd seen her family and friends fall, one by one, to those scale-deprived, two-legged monsters. Her senses were so sharp, and her will for survival even sharper. 

Days and nights of little to no rest. She crossed oceans and flew over countless islands. The archipelago she knew and loved was far behind. That's when she found Dun'Broch, except, of course, she didn't know that was the name of the land she had found. It was her own paradise. Vast, rich, diverse, with no sight of dragon hunters, or other dragons in that matter. For the first time in a while, she felt enough at ease to rest.

After a few days of recovering strength, she decided to explore further south. This land was nothing like she'd seen before. It seemed to be endless. Compared to the islands she grew in, tiny spots in the ocean, wherever she landed seemed to be that, ten times bigger. She made it her mission to find where it ended and where the ocean started. Bing the dragon she was, she knew the ocean was key ti her species survival, the entrance to the hidden world.

With that in mind she flew southbound until a terrible sight caught her eyes. Countless of those two legged monsters. There was blood, and swords, and fire, and some of them were riding dragons. She knew better than to show herself, and was given the choice to turn back and live in the northern mountains, at risk to be found by one of the monsters, or use her camougflage to fly over them.

She was about to head back when a trail of blue fire appeared in the sky. It wasn't any sort of fire she'd seen before. None of the dragons ahead was capable of breathing cold fire, and hey were too far to have made the trail. It poked her natural curiosity, and she followed. The closer she flew, she noticed it wasn't a line of fire as she'd initially thought, but individual balls of cold, blue fire that floated one after the other forming a path. The closer she flew, each ball in front of the line would dissappear. The path ended in an anticlimatic dissappearance of the last little light.

A man with the complexion of a bear, and hair as red as the morning sun screamed with the streght of a thousand storms, which startled the dragon. She had flown straight into the monsters' territory. Without thinking much of it, she shot her plasma blast directly at him, giving away her location. Before she noticed, a single arrow found its way into her left wing. 

In spite of the trobbing pain in her wing, she she released another plasma shot and flew into it, rendering herself invisible, then flew right into the forest. She crashed down the trees into a circle of rocks. She couldn't hear the battle anymore, but she still wasn't at ease. 

ooo

Astrid had lost count on how many nights Hiccup left without a warning. It had become a habit of hers to follow him down the forest, just to make sure he was safe. She still hadn't talked to him since they left Berk, unable to find the strength to do it inside herself. The wound was still open and, for both of their sakes, she was willing to wait as long as they needed.

Most of the times she would ignore his absence, overall making sure he always came back before sunrise. Some times she followed him, down the same desiree path every time, and into the rock circle. Some times, when she followed him, she saw Merida meet him there. Some other times, it was just Hiccup. Those times she worried the most.

As the nights went by, Merida started showing up less and less. Hiccup seemed distressed by this, but he didn't know Astrid knew about it. It wasn't until an entire week passed without seeing Merida that Hiccup became truly desperate. She had even stopped going under desguise when the battle was fought. The last night that happened, Hiccup took Toothless with him.

It wasn't often that Toothless accompanied Hiccup to his adventures in the woods of Dun'Broch, so seeing the duo sneak out of their tents in the dead of night made astrid extra suspicious. At first Hiccup arrived to the circle and started scribbling on his diary, but time passed and there was still no hint of the princess. That's when, right on the opposite side of the circle, a ball of blue fire appeared.

The last (and first) time Astrid had seen one of those, Hiccup and Merida had disappeared into the forest rather instantly, so she surrounded the circle as stealthly as possible in order to keep Hiccup in sight. Just as she expected, the viking chief followed the light, but, to her surprise, when he came close to it, it disappeared. He walked a few steps forward and another light, identical to the last one, appeared. A few seconds later, an entire trailed of them materialied before Hiccup, insisting, almost demanding to be followed.

Astrid followed Hiccup into an older part of the forest. The trees were so dense barely any moonlight filtered through them. The only light ahead was the eerie blue light of the wisps. Astrid's heart skipped a beat when Hiccup stopped. He would've seen her had it not been for the overwhelming darkness as the last wisp dissipated. She held her breath until she heard Hiccup walk a little further. Before she knew it, they were standing before a clearing lit by moonlight. In it, they saw two things just as breathtaking. 

A white dragon, almost identical to Toothless, with scales as bright as the moon and eyes as blue as sadness, walking in circles menacingly around none other than Princess Merida. There was an array of weapons in the grond, indicating that Merida had dropped each of them. None of the dragon trainers interfered during this fateful moment in which Merida closed her eyes and offered her hand to the dragon, wordlessly asking "I trust you, will you trust me?"

The dragon hesitated but ultimately laid its nuzzle against Merida's open palm. Astrid's heart was full of many emotions. Most of it was confussion, but also excitement, and awe, and tenderness. She was reminded of the first time her and Stormfly touched, with the same doubt and hope lingering in the air. Not only had this foreign princess struck a bond with a dragon, but one of the last of its species too. All doubt and hate against Merida dissipated from Astrid's heart, leaving only healthy curiosity on what would it be like to talk to her. The blonde would never admit it, but her heart yearned for a pure friendship bond with someone like her, ever since Heather, an old friend, had moved for ever to Berserker Island.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Hiccup. He was talking to Merida, pressumably about the dragon. Astrid noticed the white dragon was scarred in many places, and seemed hesitant to bond with Tothless at first. Before she could stare further, both furies took flight and disappeared in the night sky. Since when was Toothless able to fly on his own, was a question for the future. She was about to go back, satisfied with what she'd seen, when Merida saw her. The princesses eyes seemed to pierce right through the viking's soul.

ooo

Somewhere else, far from the events of this story, a man of white hair and evil eyest extracted poison from one of his beasts. He had done everything to try and kill the very last light fury, and his patience was running thin. 

He looked ad his ever expanding map, a lonesome dot on the southern highlands. Who would've thought an isolated kingdom with no dragons naturally inhabbiting it would've been his ultimate destination.