Dancing Scales

Chapter Twelve

A/N: Fair warning, Dancer gets really panicked/anxious at the beginning. I'm not sure what it counts as, but you have been told in advance.

Dancer's P.O.V:

I banged around on the ground, blasting random places along the walls. I was panicking, and I was panicking bad.

Captured.... captured.... captured? I was captured! No, no, no, they were going to fight me, they were going to hurt me, they were going to kill me..... I was captured again?! Where was Showman? Where was Apollo? I needed my family, because I had been captured and they were going to ki-

I realized that I had collapsed and was spiralling when a warm, black wing was placed over my back. My instincts took over, and, in seconds, was backed into the wall. My wings were flared, my hackles raised, pupils slitted, and a blue glow and ferocious hiss simultaneously emanated from the pit of my throat.

"Dancer! Calm down!" exclaimed the voice that the black wing belonged to. It took me a long moment to recognize it in my half-crazed state.

I shook my head, pupils expanding, and relaxed my posture - only ever so slightly. I called out, stumbling and a little dizzy in confusion, "T-Toothless?"

A relieved sigh left my brother's jaws as he slowly inched a little forward. When he got to me, he wrapped his wings around my small frame, and I felt myself melt into his warm embrace.

After a moment, he spoke up. "You okay, sis?"

"I-I think so," I stuttered, taking a deep breath. "At least, I am now."

He hummed, tightening his wings ever-so-slightly around me, and then pulling back from the hug. He made eye contact, "I'm glad. If you don't mind me asking, why were you so panicked? I can get how your situation might be really terrifying, but your reaction seemed a bit.... much."

"I-I," I choked, breaking eye contact. Images flashed behind my closed eyelids, and I winced. "I've been captured before. It brings back really bad memories."

Toothless was about to say something in response, when noisy viking footsteps thundered into close proximity. I tensed up immediately, hissing and still shaking a little from my freak-out earlier, but, instead of jumping back, I shrank closer to my brother, who was also on the defensive - though on a more infinitesimal scale (A/N: "You make ONE mistake!" I hope at least some of you get that refrence.... I say that Patton was also responsible for the pun.).

"Toothless!" the viking boy, Hiccup, exclaimed, startled at the hostility shown on my brother's face.

Toothless arched his left wing over me possessively and snorted out a warning to his viking, "Don't scare Dancer, bread-for-brains." I simply rolled my eyes at his word choice, but hissed louder when the viking boy stepped forwards.

He paused, halting, and waved his hands in what I guessed was supposed to be a calming gesture. "Whoa, hold up, I need to get closer to unlock the fin binds!"

Toothless glanced down at me, "Can he come closer? Whatever junk the twins tied your tailfin up with, it's dragon-proof metal, which means we can't-"

"I know what dragon-proof metal is, Tooth," I interrupted him. "I've had more than my fair share of encounters with it. I guess he can get close to me, but, if he tries anything, I'm not going to hesitate to blast him."

In any other situation, I wouldn't have given permission for a viking to get close. Toothless seemed to trust him, though, and there wasn't any other foreseeable way to get out of my predicament. My brother nodded to me at my decision, and backed away a little.

Eyeing the viking warily as he advanced, I brought my tail forwards and released a warning hiss. The tail of a night fury is it's most vulnerable body part, so it's never taken lightly to let them be exposed to anyone or anything who could be a threat. I was making sure he knew that taking advantage of the situation would result in his immediate death.

The viking, Hiccup, held up a set of keys in my line of sight, "I'm just going to unlock this with these keys, girl, no need to be scared."

I internally scoffed and rolled my eyes; I could smell waves of fear coming off of him, and I could also see what he was holding. He was just idiotically narrating his own actions, and looked quite stupid in doing so.

As soon as the chains had fallen to the ground, I jumped back and positioned my tail behind myself.

Toothless spoke up from his place next to me, "Is your tail okay? It doesn't hurt, right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, bro," I chuckled and smirked at him. He was just as much as, if not, even more than, a siscon than he used to be.

Hiccup spoke up, "There, now, that wasn't so hard, now, was it?"

I shot a glare his way. "Are you trying to aggravate me?!"

"Don't mind him, he's a sarcastic turd most of the time." Toothless rubbed his wing up against mine, calming me down.

I huffed, and looked around. "Well, I'd better be going back. Snowman's probably going crazy with me still being out."

"Oh, okay," Toothless said, though I could hear slight reluctance in his voice. "I was kind of hoping you'd maybe stay over at Hiccup's hut, it's warm, but that's fine, too."

"Maaaaaybe we should wait until it's not the same day as I've been shot down and trapped by them, before I let my guard down completely around vikings?" I gave him a querying smile.

It looked like a great realization had dawned upon my brother. "Oooooh, okay. That makes sense."

I spread my wings and prepared to fly away, only to be stopped once more.

"Hey, Dancer? If you don't mind me asking, before you go, what happened when you were captured by other vikings that made you panic so much?" Toothless asked.

My heart rate spiked, and I inhaled sharply. I had to fight myself not to let my eyes be drawn to the underside of my eight wing. "I-I," I stuttered. "Um-"

As if sent by Draco himself, a loud crash followed by the unmistakably loud squawk of Showman saved me from the situation. I flinched and turned my head over my shoulder, ignoring his earlier question, and said "I've gotta go before he kills any more chickens, sorry. See ya' soon, bro."

"Bye, sis," he called back as I took off into the purple sky. It would be dawn soon, I realized, as I flew at a leisurely pace off to where Showman probably was.

Two things were on my mind. The first one was that I seemed to have given a little trust to Hiccup; I didn't subconsciously watch his every move out of the corner of my eye. The second, well.....

I glanced to the nasty, painfully-visible branding mark on the underside of my wing, choosing to ignore the other, less-conspicuous scars covering my body that had been obtained from serrated, heated, or barbed blades. You couldn't usually see most of them unless you looked hard, shedding scales always did wonders for wounds, but they were there and always would be.

He made sure of that.

He made sure of a lot of things.

A lot of terrible things.

A/N: Oooooooh, I'd bet the storyline is catching your attention now. *smirks mischievously*

I hope you enjoyed reading, and, tbh, this book probably won't have any major battles, if it even has any. Things will alllll wooooork ouuuuut......

Thanks for reading, I hope to see you in the next chapter!