"Turning and turning in the widening gyre,
The falcone cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..."

Trouble Begins

Night was the perfect cover for the most dangerous of forbidden friendships. Under the cloak of darkness, five young Vikings could easily steal away to the dragon arena. They managed it flawlessly for more than two months.

It was one of the few aspects that didn't change- everyone, even the twins, took secrecy seriously. Always. At first it was in a frightened, giddy way, for fear of getting in trouble and pride in not getting caught, but it quickly morphed into something more solemn. No words were spoken, but Hiccup could pick out the exact day that each of novice riders realized exactly what was at stake. Because while discovery meant punishment for them, it would be the death of the dragons in the arena. Of their dragons.

No risks were taken, but stealth was one of the few constants.

The dragons changed- from weakened, nervous, angry caged beasts to personable, excitable individuals always pleased to see the little humans they came to know as friends. Clean cages, plentiful food, and regular exercise filled out their weakened forms with muscle and made dulled scales gleam.

The Vikings changed- fear turned to joy, wariness to trust, indecision to determination, apathy to enthusiasm. Chores that once fell to Hiccup and Astrid were divvied up as each teen took responsibility for their dragon. Any extra task that could not be taken care of during training was vied for and, if someone found themselves unable to sneak out, traded like a commodity. By then they all understood that it was better to forfeit 'dragon time' than risk being caught. Well aware they were all in the same boat, each backed the others up. Covered each other's tracks. No one showed up late to training by choice.

And the training changed just as much. All things considered, Hiccup was stunned by how fast the arena dragons came around. But Toothless they were not. They were wild trapped, not hand-raised tame, and showed it. It took long weeks of careful persistence, repetition, simple training, play, and general kindness before anyone was ready for even the shortest of flights. But when the freedom of flight was thrown into the mix, dragons and riders came into their own. Hiccup saw the change immediately and let their underground training slip into 'fun flight time'. They still practiced the basics as a baseline, but it became less about structured training and more about relaxing in the company of their dragons. Especially after Berk's traditional 'dragon training' classes started for the village-bound teens.

Dragon training every day and actually training dragons more nights than not would run anyone into the ground, and Hiccup did what he could to help. In the time before flights, while they cleaned pens and the dragons stretched, he was regaled with the tales of the day- how Gobber was an absurd teacher, how the dragons were big babies and we were scared of these guys?, how they managed to play each confrontation with the dragons like a rough-and-tumble game to avoid most suspicion. The dragons seemed to grasp the concept, if not the reasoning behind it, and played along. Gobber was baffled despite their best efforts but, so far as they could tell, did not suspect. Time after flights was spent feeding and gentling their dragons and brainstorming ways to fool Gobber in upcoming classes. Everyone went home tired, but happy.

If the other teens thought that Hiccup was cutting them slack, he didn't correct them. Nevermind that actually getting out with their new partners was teaching them far more than training ever had, and that easy, casual interaction with the dragons had been his goal from the beginning. After all, he had worked with Toothless too, but it had always been fun. The Vikings had simply needed as much training as the dragons before he trusted them to one another.

Only on a moonless night did Hiccup dare to skirt the village.

With everyone wound down by the evening flight, it was peaceful. Toothless scarcely beat his wings under the star splattered sky, and the aurora lit the northern horizon with a soft glow. The rush of the ocean below was a constant, but the flash of the occasional whitecap was the only water they glimpsed in the darkness. Though the arena dragons and their riders were close enough that Hiccup could hear their individual wingbeats over Meatlug's steady drone, he was hard pressed to pick out where they flew. He was almost certain that Toothless had picked his position, beside but slightly higher than the other dragons, so the teens could easily spot them silhouetted against the stars.

It was a courtesy only for the riders, as the dragons thought nothing of flying at night. Toothless could navigate on cloudy nights when Hiccup couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. He had a sneaking suspicion that it had as much to do with the Nightfury's hearing as his eyesight, but hadn't come up with a way to test it yet. Whatever the reason, the dragons certainly had no qualms about the dark.

So much so that their riders trusted them completely and had turned their attention to the distant lights of Berk. They called to each other in a hushed way, just loud enough to be heard, as they tried to decide which lights came from which buildings. Hiccup, who had long since come to know the village from above, flew apart from them with Toothless. The two were content to enjoy the rest of the night in silence.

Perhaps it was because they were quiet that Toothless caught the first hints of danger. Hiccup took note when his ear-lobes perked, but only when the dragon went ridged beneath him did he realize they were in trouble.

"Toothless?" He whispered, and leaned closer to the dragon's neck. "What-?"

But his question was cut off by the sudden cacophonous chatter of the arena dragons. They darted and circled about one another in a twisting ball, heedless to the cries of their riders. Toothless joined the whirl- he whimpered and whined and rumbled, but Hookfang snarled and Stormfly squawked, Meatlug burpled and Barf and Belch hissed.

Hiccup watched with wide eyes. Even with the dragons little more than broad sweeps of motion in the black night, he still tried to see, to understand. Buffeted and battered by their mixed eddies as he tried to take it all in, he heard nothing familiar in their calls. He was in over his head in the dark.

Then, as if they'd come to a decision, they all at once fell silent and wheeled away to the southeast. Hookfang and Barf and Belch ploughed ahead, flanked by the two smaller dragons, and Toothless skated along behind them like a shadow. Questions or demands from their riders were brushed off or met with a soft snarl, if they were acknowledged at all. It seemed only Hiccup knew what they were trying to say.

"Quiet!" Hiccup barked a translation, as softly as he could.

The teens fell silent, and he might have felt bad for snapping at them when they were scared if his attention hadn't so thoroughly moved elsewhere.

Black ocean below gave way to a mist that reflected the scant light and clung with a ghostly glow to the water and sea stacks. Visible against it were the shaded forms of wild dragons. Even as the mist thickened and visibility dropped, more and more dragons melted from the fogbank. Their contact calls were loose and echoing, unlike the quiet sounds the Berkian dragons passed between themselves, and under it all rode a rising hum so deep and encompassing that Hiccup felt it thrum through his chest more than he heard it.

As the wild dragons become more numerous, the Berkian dragons closed ranks.

"What's going on?" Astrid called back in a barely contained stage whisper.

"I don't know." Hiccup replied without hesitation, but his throat was dry and he couldn't keep the tremor from his voice.

Toothless gave him a warbled coo, and Hiccup reached forward to stroke him just behind the curve of his jaw.

"I know, I know." Hiccup soothed, even though he was really extra sure he did not know. Not yet. But he knew his dragon's fear, and that was close. "It'll be ok, bud, we'll be ok. We'll figure this out…"

The wild dragons only got closer and more numerous, all adults or subadults of the species common around Berk. They snapped or snarled if another accidently flew too close to them in the mist, but otherwise scarcely acknowledged one another. Despite their proximity, the worst the humans garnered was a few curious or wary glances.

"They're hauling in their kills?" Fishlegs's voice drifted back.

"So," Snotlout sank closer to Hookfang's neck. "What does that make us?"

"The catch of the day, obviously…" But Tuffnut's words were halting, and even Ruff didn't reply.

One by one, the dark shapes of the dragons in front of them dropped out of sight, and Hiccup shifted his weight accordingly.

"Hold on, and keep down!" He called to the other riders, just before their own dragons followed their fellows in a sudden dive.

They swooped and swerved around obstacles that were all but invisible, even in the dim glow of the mists. The dragons' movements were precise and unerring; they all followed the same current, rode it like a river of wind.

To Hiccup, their surroundings were a blur- outcrops close enough to see appeared so quickly they were past almost as soon as he laid eyes on them. It was an alarming, dizzying sensation, as if the rocks were the ones moving, shooting out of the mist and missing him only by chance. Still he persisted until, through a break in the mist, he glimpsed a looming blackness.

It was not at all an unfamiliar sight; he often took his bearings from the dark forms of Berk's mountains against the stars. This mountain, though, was different- a jagged, broken thing draped with ribbons of red that flowed down its faces like water afire.

He caught only a brief glimpse and had never seen such a thing himself, but had heard enough tales to know what it was. The blood of the earth, burning rock- it was lava, the mountain a volcano.

Hiccup was still staring, mouth agape, when the dragons swept into a break in the mountainside and the world went black.

It was as dark as he had ever experienced. He had to blink to remind himself that his eyes were indeed still open. With no visual warning, Toothless's turns were sudden jerks that flipped his stomach, and Hiccup clung tight to the saddle straps.

Light appeared again all too soon, a steady red glow in the tunnel ahead. Hiccup had just enough time to register the heat and strange smell of smokeless, woodless burning before Toothless burst into an enormous, depthless cavern.

While the wild dragons dipped down to drop their kills into the steam-veiled lava below, the Berkian dragons arced up and landed in a flutter of wings on the shadowed side of a rock outcrop. Toothless was the last to touch down and crept to a vantage point alongside the arena dragons, pressed so low that his belly scraped the rock. Here the wild dragons were quieter, their contact calls fewer, and the Berkian dragons exchanged only the quietest of frightened trills as Fishlegs muttered something about volcanic eruptions.

"They just dropped all our food down a pit!?" Snotlout hissed.

"They're not eating any of-"

Astrid was cut off by a deep rumble that literally shook the cavern. Small chips of rock shivered and danced across the flats of the outcrops as the sound reverberated in the hollow of Hiccup's chest.

Every dragon in the cavern collectively tensed and cowered. It was warning enough for Hiccup, but the rest of the teens nearly jumped out of their skins when a great, backlit form rose from the steam.

Only the head of the beast was visible, yet only that was still far more massive than any creature the teens had ever seen- it's great maw and bull neck plenty large enough to swallow a whale whole as easily as other dragons would a fish. Uneven teeth, long and thin, rose from its rock-jaw and the back if its head was crowned with a craggy crest. It cleared the layer of steam and scanned the entire cavern with one roll of its domed blue eyes.

Its gaze passed over them, but Hiccup was not relieved for long. He watched the beast's arched nostrils as they breathed out great plumes of vapor, then flared on a deep inhale.

He had seen that before.

"Toothless-" He crouched low and urgent over the dragon's neck, legs braced. "We have to get out of here now bud… Snap out of it- Toothless please…"

But Toothless was so tense and still beneath him that the Fury might have been carved straight from the rock outcrop. And while Hiccup had an early warning, he was not the only one to put two and two together.

"Uh, guys!" Fishlegs's voice rose in panic. "This thing can smell us!"

The massive head tipped with a thundering growl, and Hiccup caved.

"Everyone up now!" Hiccup screamed.

Toothless was in the air before Hiccup even registered that he'd moved to jump. Startled into action, the arena dragons took off a wingbeat behind.

They were spotted instantly, and the great dragon's roar was so earth-shattering that Hiccup squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face against Toothless's neck, even though he dared not let go of the saddle straps to cover his ears.

At their Alpha's advance, the wild dragons flushed from their perches and fled in a storm of wings. The sudden cover was a stroke of luck, but the panicked chatter of the dragons was almost immediately split by the deep sound of an impact and a crunch, followed by a desperate shriek.

Hiccup turned so fast he nearly wrenched himself from his saddle. His heart stopped in his chest when he couldn't find Barf and Belch in the chaos, and it was with relief and horror that he glimpsed the Alpha sinking back into the belly of the volcano with a wailing wild Zippleback crushed in its jaws.

The dragons scattered from their whirlwind as soon as they cleared the peak of the volcano. As they dispersed and their calls faded, the world went suddenly and eerily quiet.

After the heat of the volcano, the night air was clammy against Hiccup's skin. The glow of the lava, too, had ruined his night vision, so he focused on calming his breathing until he was sure he could pick out the sounds of wingbeats behind Toothless.

"Everyone still with us?" He called back.

He was sure everyone was accounted for, as the dragons would be calling if one of them was lost, and a dragon that had lost its rider would be kicking a fuss, at best, but he had to check anyway.

When he received only ambiguous noises in response, he called out each of the teens' names, one by one, until he got a response.

The rest of the flight was silent.

Toothless led them to the cove instead of the arena, and they stayed there on the unspoken agreement that no one wanted to leave their dragons yet. They discussed theories, the twins proved suspiciously knowledgeable about the workings of beehives, they considered every idea put forward on how to get rid of the queen, no matter how farfetched, and subsequently scrapped them all. Only then did they finally lapse into silence, until the waxing moon rose and reminded everyone that time was, indeed, passing.

They agreed that the death of the Queen would end the war, that they were no match for the giant dragon, and that warning the village of her would get their own dragons killed.

Whether or not they should warn the village anyway was never brought up for debate.

Three things: 1) Toothless, raised by Hiccup, had never seen the Queen before. While not caught completely off guard, he didn't know what he was getting in to. 2) Had Barf and Belch been the Zippleback caught by the Queen, Hiccup would have tried to go back for the twins. It's for the best that didn't happen. 3) The bee hive comparison is a-ok, as people have kept bees for thousands of years and those of the British Isles certainly knew enough about their hives to have words for the queens and workers.

Hold on to your pants, kiddos. This chapter took but next chapter- oh, this next chapter is the last of the scenes that started me on this venture. Buckle up. It's going to be fun.

I think I've solved the 'what Nadders evolved to hunt' mystery. They're quick, light on their feet, and agile in the air with irregular teeth, good for hooking and snaring. Another fic reminded me of two things from the T.V. series- Stormfly's speed is second only to Toothless' (from a standing start), and she gets faster when fed chicken. CHICKEN. Fish and bird meat are very different. Amazing what a proper diet can do, eh? I submit to you that Nadders hunt largish seabirds. Primarily. I assume they're opportunistic.

Thanks to all that followed along (and even contributed in the reviews!) to this overthinking of a fictional fantasy universe. You rule. Together we will niche-partition everything. And speaking of vaguely applied science-

Toothless's growth rate in this story is unrealistic. A lot. For a terrestrial vertebrate, at least. From large house cat sized to HTTYD sized in this chapter in… 13, 14 months? Even if he's lighter than he looks- that's too much. Domestic pigs can approach 300 lbs in 6 months, but that's apples to oranges and still not enough. More applicable is the growth of theropod dinosaurs (where progress is being made wooooo!). The smallest Tyranosaurus rex yet found ('Chomper') is estimated at 2~3 years, but has a skull only about 13 inches long. 'Jane', an estimated 11-year-old, was only twenty feet long- half the length of an adult rex. So. Definitely a fictional part of this fanfiction.

Opening quote is from the poem The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats. It's oft quoted (anyone else read Things Fall Apart for school?), and I haven't read the whole poem. But yay, more nods to falconry! If you didn't feel at least a little concerned between that and chapter title, I'm doing something wrong.