Finally caught up and finished this story, looking much forward to the sequel!
In regards to the teaser:
my first guess is that that night fury is actually the "usurper" and has been controlling the skrill(s?) for reasons unknown, is not from the Isle of night, and definetly not friendly.
My second guess is that it is a complete stranger though peaceful fleeing from the skill, and their fighting was what caused the difference in the storm.
That is of course all speculation, and I wonder if those scenarios were included in your exclusions.
Time will tell.

"You tell me not to worry, then get into a fight. You're sending very mixed messages." Well, that's Hiccup for you xD I do feel the scythe was a little underwhelming given how much emphasis it's been given through the story as being totally overwhelming. It was satisfying here, but as you say, it didn't really fit the story. Ah well.

Oh hey, Maour's spouting all his secrets again! And yeah, repeating a lot of stuff we already know, introducing a character who by definition won't be joining them. Two purposes, it's a great rule to write by. There are some interesting tidbits but they could have been worked in elsewhere, and likely still could.

Okay I know I'm not the best person with colours, but what kind of camouflage is orange and/or pink? "She can't." Lmao, there are some gems in here, but I can appreciate why you scrapped it. It's not really a prank if you order them to it, you have to trick them into agreeing.

Ohhh man, yeah I've only just read the cut chapter 5 and my god thank heck you made the changes you did. This version is just far too straightforward and lacking in drama. Every single change you made from this chapter from making the "heather touches togi" bit, to the setting of the story being told to Heather and Maour, and the story itself, EVRYTHING of the reworked version was a standout high point of the book and god damn am I glad you redid what you did.

Who wrote all this? You from two(ish) years ago, that is who. One of the pitfalls of writing out far ahead of whatever is currently posting is that the first draft doesn't reflect the improvements (mostly narrative and stylistic) made since that composition and the present. Still nice to get an insight behind the scenes, since you mentioned a lot of editing/re-working had to happen mid-story.

I'm glad you didn't include the Nadder scene, it further pushes the underwhelming Night Fury sense with three of them afraid of a single common dragon; though Toothless did a fair bit to save face at the end there, and if they either let the Nadder go or killed it, it or its family could be a threat while they slept, so it makes sense. Poison also doesn't typically drip, terribly wasteful. The Skrill was much more satisfying in many ways, particularly in that it's a much bigger threat and they did actually take it down.

Ah yes, giving far too much weight to the plot and not enough to the actual scenario. The way my planning works and with my story what it is, it's something I'm probably much less susceptible to than most, and yet I've still fallen into that trap before. Maour rambling off his and everyone else's most sensitive secrets like an overconfident supervillain was amusing in a strange way though.

I finished Raethi's perspectives thinking "eh, this isn't so bad". Then it flipped to Heather and aaaggghhh xD

But "Shield" as a name feels really strange... Skjöldur, its Icelandic translation, sounds much better.

Where do I start? The story is great but it is not without faults. I won’t get into nit picking of every detail for good and for bad, but I will try to highlight the best and the worst of the story.
A common theme in all of your stories is the idea of identity, and it has repeatedly helped make your stories interesting. Heather as a Nott was one of the most compelling arcs in the story. Which brings me to my first critique: Heather’s story was not substantial. But not substantial, I mean lacking substance, not lacking in length. Throughout Living Anonymously, you kept hinting that Heather would stop being a passive observer to her own life, and finally take the lead. Instead, she doesn’t kill Dagur, and doesn’t call raethi out for his bs. Not that either of those things needed to happen, but Heather needed something more substantial, driven by her own choices rather than the plot machine.
The fight between Astrid and Heather, Togi, and raethi was particularly memorable because it was one of the few in this story with high stakes for individual characters. I guess that for this story in particular, there was never as much of a high stakes feel for any of the major characters compared to some of your other stories.

Now for the fun part of the review: guessing what’s next. Based on the description, name, and teaser, the conflict of Living Freely will revolve around mind control. I am fairly sure that Dagur will be back as a human enemy based on the parallels between him and drago, and drago may show up, based on his link to a mind controlling dragon. Here is my wild shot in the dark about the plot of the next story.

The Dragon shot down in the teaser (we will call him Arc) goes to the Isle and attempts to integrate there. The skrill that Arc was with will fall under the control of Dagur somehow. Arc won’t reveal his nature, choosing to try and quietly fit in. Things come to a turning point when Toothless finds Arc in a secret meeting with the skrill under Dagur’s control. The skrill is encouraging Arc to attack, and Arc finds himself fighting his instincts to do so. Once Toothless discovers this, Arc confesses that he is a half breed, but that his skrill parent was friendly to Furies for unknown reasons. Arc, feeling torn, decides to leave the isle of night on a rescue mission. This leaves the rest of the Isle of Night with the dilemma of whether or not to help Arc. The island decides not to, but toothless feels guilty and somewhat responsible for Arc’s plight, and goes after him anyway. The story will end with Arc, Toothless, and “the good skrill” barely escaping, but at a huge cost – their identities. Of the dragons, both Toothless and the skrill will forget who they are due to mind control, lightning damage or both, and Arc will be responsible for trying to find a solution in the denouement of the story,

Before I write my real reveiw (which I will do later), i will say, awesome story, and many thanks! To follow through on such a gargantuan undertaking is impressive in its own right. To actually have the will to go back, edit, and rework large portions of the work is almost unbeleivable. Like I said, I'll leave a real, critical reveiw later, but for now, thanks for the story.

Well, you've said plenty of times that this is misdirection or not what it seems. This must happen a substantial amount of time after the end of LA, given the time to make and transport such a weapon. First impression though is that this new Fury appears to be a victim/survivor of lightning strikes from Skrill. Was it hunting the Skrill? There was no mention of purple blasts in the sky (as happened vs. film Queen), so we can assume that it wasn't firing plasma blasts at the Skrill. Maybe they weren't hostile. Or maybe there was no Skrill in this scene.
Incidentally, Skrill will be relevant in the future for me in a way no one will probably guess.

I'm betting that it's a wild night fury...

Lightning without Thunder? That sounds eerie...

A lone Viking upon a cliff aiming a weapon at the dark sky, where have we heard that before?

...Okay yeah I really wasn't expecting that. We aren't given enough specifics to infer much from the injuries other than that there's a lot of them and there's something odd going on with its wings. Hearing from a new Fury promises to be interesting.

It's implied there were more Skrill in the area, as there was still lightning after the one was shot down (unlikely to be a natural storm due to no thunderclaps), but it's impossible to say if there are more night Furies.

How do you know what my guesses are? xP I'm guessing that the Night Fury lives there and/or is defending something, constantly beset by Skrill attacks, or vice versa (that he keeps returning to clear out Skrill attracted by regular natural storms). My second guess is that this is an entirely random encounter, as Aldir notes that this isn't how these storms usually go and your stories are often precariously balanced around coincidences.

My third guess is far more out there but perhaps the most interesting. If there were multiple Skrill in the air, what was the reason for one of them singling itself out? It's entirely possible it was working *with* the Night Fury, which is more along the twisty plot lines you like to follow; it's in line with the blurb you've got of the 4th book too. Could go any number of ways from there, maybe it escaped, or was taken by the other Skrill.

I am curious as to whether the Night Furies are called the Usurpers, by the Skrill's, because of their, presumed, ability of being able to use lightning, as depicted in HTTYD 3, and due to Skrills being renowned for their use of lightning they may believe the Night Furies to be Usurpers to them.
But knowing you, there is probably an entire backstory on this theme.

I hate you so much for making us wait till September.. anyway phenomenal ending and look forward to seeing the next lot. I should probably continue writing at some point

Well, that's that for the second installment of the Living series. What jumps out as being worth mentioning?

The dynamic with the Notts and Heather was deliberate and gradual. Reithi struck me as, maybe this is a result of re-writing mid-story, very complex. I'm still not sure what to make of him.

Dagur and Astrid were appropriately obsessed, manic, and consistent. The only comment about them is that at no point did they evoke sympathy. That's probably intentional, given that they are the two main villains and aren't meant to be complex or sympathetic.

The sequences involving battle itself were, in my opinion, well-balanced between length, imagery, and action.

What remaining issues are there to be explored in the future? Obviously, Von and Einfari are going to plot to push Maour and Heather closer together. The 'two Night Furies working together to get Hiccup to find love' has plenty of potential, as I know well!' Depending on how much time passes, we might get to see the antics of the two newest Svarturs. Skrills are certainly going to factor into future events and might shed some light, no pun intended, on the mysterious 'glow'. Dagur is still alive, but he is unlikely to be a factor for reasons given in the final chapter. Other possible content that might show up would include: Drago Bludvist, the Grimbornes/dragon hunters, Valka and the Sanctuary, or maybe the warlords. Whether any of these or novel antagonists show up, the Isle of Night is on the map now, so the pack is no longer living anonymously.

It's finally over. Astrid is dead, Dagur is permanently crippled and spending the rest of his life being held captive, Rethi finally accepted Heather into the family, and Heather can finally feel at peace knowing that she is no longer on the run and is at a place where she is loved and accepted. For the first time in months, everyone can be at ease that they are no longer in danger, and can continue with their lives.

I find it funny and cute that Enifari and Von wants Hiccup and Heather to get together and have a baby. Have fun waiting 9 months if that ever happens girls, and have fun learning how humans make babies lol.

This had been a quite a wild ride filled with emotion, excitement, sadness, and happiness. Can't wait to see what the next story has in store for us!

"I feel like we should have been getting this respect from the beginning." That's ironic, coming from Einfari xD

To be fair to the Isle of Night, they've lived peacefully there with not even a hint they were there up until now. Obviously that's not the way the Mahelmetans are going to see it but... the bigger danger is the man you *don't* know about standing over one's bed with a sword in hand. The flip side being that you don't know about him and therefore have nothing to worry over...

Well, Dagur is alive but it sounds like he won't be causing trouble again any time soon, and yet I have to wonder if and how he'll come up again. I wouldn't know anything about doing that with him myself, of course.

Hmm, a storehouse by the docks. Will we find out what the strange cage was for? My running guess at this point is infant Skrill, but that is purely based on the properties of the cage and doesn't necessarily fit other circumstances... but I don't have anything else that makes sense.

Ahh, I continue to enjoy the Notts. You handled Raethi really well, even without considering it was handled on the fly; it's tricky to pull off a complete turnaround of character (as I'm sure you're painfully aware), especially while focusing on it, but it all felt smooth and natural. Huh, I just realised you have a bit of a penchant for the "younger older brother" in Spark and Raethi.

Well... If this were any other story, I'd expect Maour and Heather to work out what's going on around the second time they were somehow lumped together. Buuuut that would be a discredit to Einfari, and the Notts in general; they wouldn't be nearly so blatant about it. Von might be, but Einfari would account for that.

Well, this was certainly a roller coaster of a story to follow. We had Heather's whole arc, Togi's past, an encounter with a Skrill (with some ominous lore/foreshadowing hints), quite a lot around Dagur and Astrid, Svatur eggs and subsequently hatchlings (also going into Night Fury young and instincts), quite a lot on various Viking tribes, the Avatar State, Raethi's progression with humans, and of course the war itself. At any rate, you've certainly set yourself up quite an act to follow, but with a veritable trove to work from. I look forward to it.