this is the sequel to Hearts of shadow and Before the Riders by eva. if this is the first one of the three you come across I suggest you read Hearts of shadow first move onto Before the Riders THEN come to this. also I don't have a cover yet.
Characters
Elka- female titan wing woolly howl, her fur is pale purplish-teal with royal blue tips, her underside is dark violet with pale blue stripes, mate is Copper. mother of Nya and Nyx
Copper- male titan wing sand wraith, his scales are golden brown with burgundy stripes from head to tail with unusual green eyes, mate is Elka. Father of Nya and Nyx
Thunder female Titan skrill, black with dark blue spikes and teal on her wings and underbelly.
Vera-female death gripper, black spikes on top and white underbelly, dark mineral blue scales on top of the spikes
Nightshade-female titan flightmare, light purple scales with bright sea green wing tail and spike tips
Nya- purple and gold female Sand Howl with purple fur on top teal blue details and lionet gold wings underbelly legs and tail. she has two larger 'antlers' on her head but for now, they're small. her eyes a magenta and she has a black splotch around one eye. daughter of Elka and Copper
Nyx- golden brown male Sand Howl with purple wings and underbelly fur club on tail tip, bright green eyes, and two small horns on his head. son of Elka and Copper. you will encounter more characters as the story continues.
Please Note[]
okay, we've all seen this before, blood, gore, swearing dark events. so uh read at ur own risk.
ALSO, I am only posting this because I'm VERY pleased with the prologue, I will then ignore this mostly and work on BtR because I want to finish BtR but the prologue for this was just too good!
Prologue[]
3 years before Shattered Kingdom
Brook woke up to silence. She was confused, silence was rare for Berk. all of the dragons usually talked in the night, their squawks and roars echoing through the still air. But all she heard was silence. She quickly realized multiple things were wrong.
The large loft she was sleeping in had gotten smaller in the night. She gathered her legs underneath her and tried to stand up. Something prevented her from standing. She flapped her green and blue wings trying to get up.
After a bit of struggling something or someone lifted the weight off of her back. She looked up expecting to see Elka. but instead she saw a red and black Deathgripper staring down at her. He didn’t know if this dragon was friendly or not but it had a weird contraption on its head.
She looked around and found the house she was staying in had fallen apart. She looked back at the Death Gripper.
“H-hello,” Brook stuttered.
“Master I found one!” the Deathgripper roared.
Brook backed up nervously, what is this dragon talking about? She wondered.
A tall and skinny old man walked over to them. She didn’t recognize him, but he didn’t look like he could be a threat. She was wary of him, he reached out to her, his hand seemed to be reaching for her neck.
She barred her teeth and wrapped her tails around his wrist stinging him. To her dismay he didn’t seem to care, she looked back at his hand, he was wearing gloves. A sharp pain erupted in her neck and she jumped back startled. She hadn't realized this but his other hand had a crossbow. She took another clumsy step back, her legs were betraying her. Her muscles relaxed and she started to feel really weird.
She took another step and fell over the old grandpa dude smirking at her. She tried to growl but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. All she could do was bare her teeth at him and even that didn’t look threatening.
“Too easy, you didn’t even give a fight!” the old dude muttered.
Brook closed her eyes when she opened them again she had a large metal band around her neck, it cut through the fin down her back and it kind of hurt her. Chains wrapped around her mouth and body pinning her down.
A Deathgripper walked by and she got an idea.
“Hey,” she hissed not sure about her plan but it could work.
The Deathgripper paused glaring at her.
She smirked “oh I was just going to tell you...nevermind I probably shouldn’t,” Brook muttered trailing off.
The Deathgripper looked confused ”tell me what?” it asked.
“Oh, nothing I shouldn’t,” she muttered.
“Just spit it out!” it growled.
“If you insist, the other Deathgripper’s were mentioning that your acid was the weakest,” Brook muttered.
“How do you know it was me?” the Deathgripper grumbled.
“They specifically stated the dragon had one blind eye, and you fit that description,” she replied.
“Well, they’re wrong!” it hissed.
“I know I tried to tell them but they want to see that for themselves,” she replied.
The dragon blasted acid along Brooks chains without noticing where it hit.
“When they come back tell them I did that!” it hissed stalking off.
Brook grinned standing up and snapping the weakened chains, the one around her neck had kind of melted and burned her scales. She grimaced not wanting to take it off for fear of exposing her wound to daylight. She dashed out from the place where she was being chained down. The roar of Deathgripper’s echoed behind her. Her stupid legs were bad at running on land, she almost tripped over rocks. She yelped as darts flew after her. She dove off the cliff and into the water. Her gills kicked in and she was able to easily slip through the water. She stopped to collect her thoughts. Where is everyone? Why did everyone disappear, where did they go? Where’s Elka? She wondered looking around.
She spotted two other Silver Bellied Green-Scales and swam over to them.
“Hi! I’m Brook, do you know what happened to Berk?” she asked the dragons hopefully.
They exchanged glances “uh….no!” the first one said.
“Oh, okay,” Brook replied turning around to swim off.
“What’s with the weird ring?” the Green-Scale asked.
“What ring?” Brook asked confused.
“You know, the melted one around your neck,” he replied.
“It’s non of your business,” she muttered glaring.
The dragons looked at her then the looked to each other and smiled wickedly.
“Maybe we can help you if you help us,” the other one suggested stepping forward.
“Sure what can I help you with?” she replied.
“You see those rocks over there? Inside is a ton of food, if you open it up and give some to us while destroying the rest we’ll help you heal those cuts all over you,” he replied.
“Why can’t you do that?” Brook asked.
The other dragons glared at her “because we’ll get in trouble if we do! And you’re an innocent stranger, no one knows you, it’ll be fine!” he explained.
Brook was suspicious but obeyed wanting the cuts all over her gone. She went over to the rocks and with almost no effort tore the stash of food open she picked some up in her paws delivered it to the other Green Scales and went back. She vibrated her throat getting ready to blast when strange images flashed behind her eyes. She choked back the liquid glass in surprise at what just happened.
The images flashed again, of a blue flower, blood, and a disturbing bright red and blue eye.
“Why did you stop?!” the dragon growled.
She vibrated her throat again this time shooting the glass encasing all of the food suddenly aware that she probably screwed everything up real good.
“Good, we’ll help,” the first Green Scale replied.
They turned and begun swimming away. One noticed Brook didn’t follow and turned around.
“You coming?” he asked.
“Hmm? Oh yes,” she replied shooting after them.
They slipped through the water like bullets leaving a trail of bubbles. They jumped out of the water spinning as they crashed back into the surface. She enjoyed herself. The last time she’d been in water was when she was way younger when she was hit by the ship tearing her wing a little and banging her head. Elka had found her, helped her and they became friends. Brook hoped Elka was okay.
“We’re here,” the first Green Scale muttered.
They stepped onto the beach, the two other dragons told her to ‘wait here while we go get the supplies,’ she sat patiently and they came back with strange blue flowers. The flowers had five petals and Brook had never seen anything like them. The Green Scale held the flowers with his tail and laid them down on a large rock with a divot in the center. He then spat water in the divot, while the other dragon carried a strange orange-ish clear liquid that resembled snake venom.
“What is that flower?” she asked.
“Uh, Blue Oleander,” he muttered as if he didn’t want her to hear the name of the flower.
“Never seen it before,” she replied.
The dragon looked to his friend and grinned they seemed to speak with their eyes but Brook didn’t know what they were saying. He took the flowers in his paw with a grimace and smashed them in the water turning the water a beautiful stratospheric blue.
“What now?” Brook asked.
“The best way for the flower to work if it gets into your bloodstream, this might hurt a bit but it’ll fix everything, in fact it works so well you might not ever feel pain again,” he replied grinning.
“Wow! So glad I ran into you guys!” she replied.
“Close your eyes!” he demanded dipping his claws into the flower liquid.
“This is going to hurt a bit,” he growled.
She closed her eyes feeling him touch two of his claws to the area right above her eye. That wasn’t so bad! She thought exited to have it done with. Then it hit her, well, he hit her. there was a loud SCRIPP his claws ripped right through her scales the nasty noise echoed through the forest.
She shrieked in pain the flower burned, she stumbled backward trying to manage the pain blinking wildly. She watched him drink the snake venom looking liquid and walk off.
“You’re welcome!” he replied jumping into the ocean and swimming off.
She collapsed from the pain. Just wanting to see her friend.
She blinked the sand from her eyes, waking up in a different place. The eye that got scratched stung like saltwater had gotten into the wound. She walked to a tidepool and stared at her reflection. Her wound was puffy and red, the blue liquid was visible but nothing healed. in fac,t she felt worse like she was sick.
Her stomach twisted its self into a knot once she saw her eye. Her once pure blue eye was now bright red and blue. Her mind felt sickened, cloudy, and broken in a way that can’t be fixed. She heard the roar of a waterfall and looked around, she wasn’t on an island. It was a little rocky strip of beach. With a huge waterfall. She jumped down spreading her wings and shooting through into a different world.
Beneath the surface, it was bright and full of life. She wished she could feel how this place looked. She sat on a crystal and admired the place she was in. dragons passing by gave her strange looks and pulled their hatchlings close to them ushering them past whispering to each other.
“What’s wrong with your face!?” a hatchling asked.
She immediately turned towards them glaring she didn’t know what came over her she thrashed her tails and spread her wings slowly and in intervals, like a machine.
“I don’t know, what IS wrong with my face, do tell, please” she whispered dangerously calm.
The look of fear the crossed the baby dragons face was immeasurable and priceless. The other stepped in.
“I am so so sorry, it won’t happen again you have a wonderful face,” the mother assured her but there was something hidden deeper in her eyes, pleading and fear.
Brook looked at the mother curiously never had she seen these emotions in another, she wasn’t sure if she liked it or not. Part of her did. The mother whispered to her baby and they ran off. Brook seemed to listen up and sat back on the crystal looking down at herself. She hated her image. She sang a low and angry tune in annoyance ending it sharply as she slashed her reflection off of the crystal. She looked back at the deep claw marks scratching out her face. Then the voices came in.
“You can’t wake up, this isn’t a dream. You’re not a dragon, you’re nothing no one cares for you,” they echoed in her mind clouding her judgment.
“NO!” she yelled earing her strange looks from the passers by.
“B-Brook?” someone asked from the crowed.
Brook looked up who had said her name?
The dragons in the crowed parted showing the familiar purple fuzzy dragon she knew as Elka.
“ELKA!” Brook exclaimed running over to her old friend.
“Brook! I thought I’d never see you again!” Elka replied.
Brook backed up for a second, “what do you mean?” she asked quietly.
“Oh Brook what did you do to your eye?” Elka asked.
“What do you mean by I thought I’d never see you again!?” Brook replied louder.
Elka blinked thoughtfully “Brook- we thought you had died,” Elka responded.
“But I’m right here,” she replied.
“Well, the hut you were in collapsed, we were all supposed to leave that day because Grimmle had found us, and well we thought you were dead so,” Elka trailed off.
“So you left, without even coming back to look,” Brook muttered in astonishment.
“If we knew you were alive we’d have looked Brook I swear!” Elka responded quickly she seemed to know where this was going.
“ BULL * * * *! You all left me for DEAD! The Grimmel guy found me and did THIS!” she snarled gesturing to the melted metal, “then I found two other dragons that made me STEAL for them so they could ‘heal’ me using Blue Oleander,” she was cut off.
“BLUE OLEANDER!? Brook, that’s fatal poison,” Elka replied scared.
“W-what!?” Brook replied scared now.
Her fear boiled into rage. She didn’t care enough for you, I can help, make her feel how you do, make them all feel how you feel, PAIN! The voice screamed, she knew she shouldn’t but she listened.
“You never went back for me, and look what happened. Kind of funny I used to depend on you, but now I haven’t been better. I’ve been poisoned, burned, and tricked all because you didn’t look for me. Because YOU didn’t care enough to try! You think I’m poisoned now, what about before, when you made me think I needed you, when I BELIEVED THE LIE THAT YOU WERE MY FRIEND! I am going to MAKE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU FEEL PAIN!” she roared turning back to Elka.
“Starting with you,” she hissed turning and flying away, away from all their eyes, away from them.
Chapter one, broken peices[]
3 years after Hearts of shadow
Elka woke up in the middle of the night, she was expecting Nya or Nyx to have woken her up but she was greeted with silence. She was having issues sleeping because they were VERY needy. When she learned she was going to have to take care of these little monsters she thought ‘okay SURE, this is going to be easy anyone can be a parent,’ boy was she WRONG. They constantly needed attention and if she wasn’t watching them all of the time they’d stuff rocks in their mouths because WHY NOT!?
Nya started twitching as if she was waking up, Elka froze trying to pretend to be asleep hoping that Nya would go back to sleep as well and wouldn’t wake up her brother or Copper. Nya started laying still again and Elka let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She loved Nya and Nyx but keeping them alive and not choking on rocks was hard at the best of times.
Nya curled back up into a little ball of fur and spikes. They were still pretty young, knowing some words but obviously having some pausing and stuttering issues. To think that three years ago they could have both died MANY times scared the * * * * out of her, she was still scared of saying the word ‘Neberu’ and the Hidden World was more divided than ever. The different classes of dragons didn’t like interacting with each other.
To make things worse everyone kept abusing the former Shadow Legion dragons, they weren’t allowed in certain places and a lot of them were not allowed homes. They tried turning back to their former home in the abyss but it had come to Elka’s attention that the LIGHT FURIES had moved down there. WHY?! She sighed annoyed. One of the worse issues along with the abuse was for whatever reason Hybrids were being looked down upon more then ever. It was a mees Toothless said he was ‘trying his best’ but as far as Elka was concerned he wasn’t trying very hard.
She carefully got up trying to not wake up Nya or Nyx. she sat back on her haunches to jump off and fly away in doing so she accidentally flicked the tip of her tail along Nya’s nose shortly after jumping off the edge and gliding away into the night. She wasn’t accustomed to the silence of night, kind of preferring the chaos of the day, at least then there wasn’t so much dark.
She was still paranoid about the dark she was pretty sure Neberu had cause permanent damage to her, she was alive but different. After a slightly nerve racking flight through the darkness she came to the waterfall making her feel a lot more comfortable.
She flew up and landed on a dark rock with a beach at it’s tip. She was never one for silence, she much preferred the noise chaos and light of the world. When the world was quiet she could hear things, things she tried to push down after Neberu’s downfall. she starred at the roaring ocean and the night sky for a while before she heard tiny wing-flapps behind her. Elka turned to see that Nya had followed her out here.Elka couldn’t help but grin a little , she was kind of annoyed but Nya followed her and that was adorable.
“MOM!” Nya squeaked lopsidedly flying over to Elka.
“Hi baby, why aren’t you asleep??” Elka asked smirking.
Nya landed near her turned around and then looked back at Elka and yawned. Elka found that even more adorable, Nya was obviously sleepy and kind of confused.
“M-mommy I’m tired,” Nya siad sleepily.
“Okay we’re gonna go home now okay,” Elka muttered picking up Nya gently by the scruff of her neck.
She jumped down the water fall takeing off again. A familliar call rang out across the Hidden world and she was SO annoyed. Toothless what the hell are you doing?! A meeting NOW?! This better be worth my time or I swear to Thor I will kill you! She glided into her home, landing near the edge of the rock wall their home was carved into. Copper was somewhat awake and so was Nyx, Toothless’s roar must’ve woken them. Elka put Nya down, she then immediately scrambled over to her brother. Elka glanced at Copper who was stretching his wings.
“I guess we have to go now..” Copper muttered looking at Elka.
“Um, we can’t leave them here by themselves,” Elka reminded Copper.
“Oh, right sorry I’m still tired,” Copper said groggily.
“It’s fine I can deal with whatever Toothless wants, see you in a bit!” Elka muttered rubbing against Copper then turning to fly off.
“Mom, where you go?” Nyx asked stumbling over his sister.
“I have something to take care of real quick I’ll be back soon I promise, be good for dad!” she muttered licking each of them before flying off.
She heard Toothless roar again, this one was a bit more pointed like he was telling her ‘Hurry up!’. As she glided into the large throne room the beaming light of the crystal Toothless was standing on hit her it took here eyes a moment to adjust. She spotted Vera, Nightshade, and Thunder in the crowd and stopped to chat for a bit.
She landed next to them to screw with Toothless and make him really mad.
“So, what’s this about?” Elka asked flatly.
“Oh, you’re going to get a kick out of this it’s really good, just you wait.” Vera muttered sarcastically.
“Oh perfect, this is just lovely,” Elka replied even more annoyed.
She took off again this time landing on the crystal still turning it blue wherever she stepped.
“Took you long enough,” Toothless muttered “what were you doing?”
“Sleeping.” Elka muttered annoyed.
Toothless just kind of shrugged off her remark and continued with his speech or whatever he was doing. Elka just kind of sat looking intimidating. She went on ignoring a lot of he said but she couldn’t help but listen to his last announcement.
“As you all probably know, there was a beating yesterday at noon. One of our guards accidentally attacked a dragonet thinking they were smuggling dragon nip, the dragon is fine but-”
“EXCUSE ME?! wait one second here, you’re telling me that one of OUR guards beat a dragonet....” Elka roared outraged.
“Could you calm down for a moment I’m going to talk to the guard and get their story on the incident,” Toothless replied calmly.
“ wha...no no no no NO! You KNOW who did this and you AREN’T banishing them?! Do you want bloodshed?! I demand punishment!!! Elka roared.
“ QUIET! We don’t know anything yet, we need more info, I am trying to be reasonable and you’re not helping!” Toothless hissed.
“You call that REASONABLE?! Are you serious?! What you’re saying is: ‘Yeah here’s a slap on the wrist and no incentive to stop’. We have all the story we need the guard is lying I want them GONE !” Elka roared.
“Elka you’re making me look like the bad one, look what you’re saying...you’re saying you want to separate this dragon from their family...they have two dragonets of their own and a mate, you want to separate them from society, I want them to stop but it was an accident give them some mercy,” Toothless reasoned.
“Oh, that WAS my mercy...and I don’t care if they’re separated from society, we could kill them and I would NOT care, in fact we should kill them!” Elka snareld.
“Stoppit!! Stop it this INSTANT, you are wanting to kill a dragon with a family for an accident! An honest to goodness accident,” Toothless growled turning on Elka.
“Fine don’t kill them but I wan them GONE, and their family should watch them go! This is what happens when you * * * * UP! If their hatchlings knew what they did they wouldn’t call them their parent any more, call me heartless, but think of the other side!” Elka roared.
“ELKA QUIET, I will speak to them that’s final!” Toothless snarled.
Elka glared at him pupils slitting, Toothless was a good dragon with a good heart, but he needed to be brutal sometimes how else will anyone know you mean business?!
“You’re a pushover Toothless.” Elka growled shoving him out of the way and stepping to the edge of the crystal,”LET’S HOLD IT TO A VOTE! Anyone who thinks the guard should be banished breathe flame, or whatever it is that you shoot if you don’t shoot anything then flap your wings.”
All around the crystal fire erupted of course there were some who sat there still as a statue glowering at her with looks of absolute loathing. At least two theirs of the hidden world had agreed with her.
“Whoever you are you’re banished! You have one day to leave or I will find you and make you leave myself!” She roared.
An uproar came from the crowd most roars of encouragement some jeering, and cursing her name. A blueish-purple plasma blast hit the opposite wall and everyone shut up, ELka looked over at toothless and he was M A D.
She was almost scared of him, but she knew he wouldn’t hurt her...right? She shook her head he wouldn’t do it publicly at least. His blue alpha glow shown through his scales. He then shoved her out of the way his body language told her not to fight him at the moment.
“Everybody LISTEN TO ME! There will be NO banishment for this dragon, and there will be NO harassing them to leave, ELKA IS NOT in CHARGE she is NOT the KING OF DRAGONS let her throw her little tantrum she’s just tired,” Toothless roared.
The crowed exploded with roars some in rage others cheering. The enraged dragons roared the loudest furious at Toothless.
“QUIET!” Toothless screamed.
He them shot a large bright blu plasma blast quieting the crowd on the spot.
“ELKA, do you have anything to say to them? To everyone for toying with their emotions?!” Toothless prompted calming down a little.
Elka hung her head and tail and walked to the edge of the crystal, “everyone I’m sorry, Toothless was right,” she muttered a smirk began spreading across her face, she lifted her head and Toothless seemed really confused. ”I’m not the king of dragons….BECAUSE I’M THE QUEEN * * * * *!”
She didn’t get to see Toothless's reaction she just jumped off of the crystal, backwards she did a barrel roll in mid-air to see the shocked and smug faces of the crowed, some dragons decided to make a hallway of fire for her parting the flames as she flew through. she landed outside the throne room shakeing out her wings and fur.
she sat there waiting for her friends to join her, it didn't take long for them to slip out of Toothless's lecture room and they colected near her.
"grade A freak out Elks," Vera muttered smirking.
"you told him what's up.. the look on his face was A-MAZ-ING!" Thunder remarked.
"yeah he just kind of stared off like: wut did she just say to me..." Nightshade contined.
"was he mad, rageing, or M A D mad?" Elka asked realizeing she was in SO MUCH TROUBLE.
"uh....yeah you might want to stay away from him for the next.....ten years," Thunder muttered.
"perfect, I AM SCREWED," Elka announced "okay I'm gonna go, have a nice night!"