Comet Nights (HTTYD Fanfic)

Chapter Five: Captured

She flew for a long time, over isles and continents and plains of rushing waves. In her head, humans were chasing her with long knives and swords and axes, even though the rest of her knew that couldn't be true, that made it nonetheless terrifying.

The journey was eerily reminding her of when she had made her way to Berk, except this time she wasn't looking for a place to rest.

This time, she wasn't looking for anything at all.

Time passed with the miles, and soon the sun rose. Still she flew on, not daring to land and rest her weary wings. Finally, she arrived in the high North, a place so cold and elevated that even now, in midsummer, snow still blanketed the ground.

She collapsed in the thin, watery summer drifts, relief flooding through her body. Snow was good. Night Furies were always laid and hatched in the winter, preferably on some frost-covered crag way up high. A bit of winter remained in their souls, even long after they had broken out of their shells.

She looked around and moaned. She couldn't stop here, it was a high, windswept plain, with no shelter to speak of. Safety lay in the valleys and ledges of the mountain range behind her. She had no choice. Wearily, she started trudging through the snow.

The mountains were farther than she had thought, and her wings were far too tired to be of any use. The sun was setting by the time she finally found a low-lying cave and fell almost instantly into a dark, dreamless sleep.

In her exhausted state, she had no idea that behind her, out in the snow, a group of dragon-trappers were waiting...

She woke to the scent of sea-salt and the roar of the ocean in her ears. Wait?! What had happened!?!

She opened her eyes to see that she was on a boat with dragon-trappers all around, that the sun was high in the sky once more, and that she was in bindings.

A thick wooden collar was around her neck, chains bound her wings to her sides, and a leather strap forced her mouth shut. She tugged at the bindings, panic rising in her throat as they proved firm.

"So, you caught my Deathjewel?"

She froze.

That voice...

No...

It couldn't be...

But then she spotted his hulking form, his dragonhide cloak, and wanted to cry out in despair.

She was trapped, and if that really was him, the only thing that could free her now was death...