Part of a request-turned-trade with Rekstone767 Story and edits by me Original: Not yet posted
"You'll be getting us quite the price, little miss light fury", taunted one of the dragon hunters that had captured her. She angrily tried to fire a plasma blast at them, only managing to cough up a few sparks. "Aw, too bad you used up all your plasma trying to fight us. Wish we could've muzzled you, but by the time you can fire again it's not like you'll be our problem any more. You just sit tight, now, our buyer should be coming by later today." The hunters left, leaving the light fury alone, caged deep in a cave.
Some time after they left, she began to hear something in the distance, too faint for her to make out what it was. It gradually got louder and louder, and just as she figured out it was rushing water, the chamber she was in started to flood! The light fury rattled the cage's bars, frantically trying to get out as the water level rapidly increased, already submerging half the cage. Knowing trying to escape on her own was hopeless, she swam to the top of the cage and took deep breaths to get ready to hold her breath as long as possible. Too soon, the water began to overtake her head, and with one last gasp, the cage was entirely underwater. The light fury puffed her cheeks and tried to relax as much as possible. She had a long time before she'd run out of breath, but even if someone knew where she was, would they get here in time?
Toothless flew fairly low, tracking the path of his kidnapped mate. The hunters that had taken her knew what they were doing, having used a dragon root-tipped arrow to knock him out for an easier fight. When he'd woken up, the light fury was gone, and he now followed the tracks left by her and the hunters. It took him only about 10 minutes to find that they led to a cave, and he went inside without hesitation, though now had to walk as there wasn't enough room for flying to be feasible. Thankfully, there weren't any branching paths, but Toothless soon came across something that was an even bigger issue than that would've been. The path ahead went underwater, and that meant the light fury was underwater, too! Toothless whined, then gasped the biggest breath he could and dove in. He could only hope he hadn't been unconscious for too long, and his mate was still able to hold her breath.
He swam through the twists and turns for half an hour, then came to a larger chamber with several branching paths. None seemed any better than any other, so he picked one at random and went in. It didn't have an immediate dead end, so he continued to swim through it. About another half hour passed, the night fury only now starting to feel a need to breathe. Just imagining how long the light fury had gone without breathing was getting him nervous... But, there was something different in the next chamber; a cage, with some bubbles coming from inside! 2 white paws gripped the bars and shook them, the light fury inside once again trying to escape.
Having been holding her breath for 4 and a half hours, her face had turned purple and her cheeks grown to nearly the size of her head. Having tightly shut her eyes, she didn't notice Toothless at first, and covered her mouth to try to hold in her air. He called out to her, a cluster of bubbles leaving his maw, and swam close to the cage as her eyes shot open. The light fury pointed to another section of the chamber and tried to say something, and while the bubbling made it hard to make out, Toothless could hear the word "key" in it, nodding and swimming in the indicated direction to look for it. It didn't take long for the key to be found, and Toothless brought it over to the cage, awkwardly fidgeting with it before getting it into the lock.
The cage's door swung open at last, and the light fury darted out, her and Toothless briefly sharing a hug. The night fury could feel her chest heaving, and the hug was quickly interrupted as the light fury drew back to cover her mouth again, face starting to turn blue. Toothless hated to see his mate suffer like this, but without having seen any air pockets this whole time, the only option would be to give up some of his own air. He tilted his head back and opened his maw, a single enormous bubble beginning to inflate from it as he exhaled, much smaller bubbles detaching from its top. There was a loud bloop as it detached from his mouth, catching the light fury's attention. After briefly hesitating, as Toothless had used a lot of air to make that bubble, she swam over and pressed her mouth against it, inhaling it all down in one go. It hadn't been that fresh, but she felt much better now, cheeks going to a more reasonable size.
The night fury's huge bubble had cost him a couple hours' worth of breath, but it was worth it to him. Now that the two were roughly equal in terms of oxygen, they both began their swim back outside. For nearly 50 minutes, things were uneventful, both dragons very slowly using up the air they held onto. Eventually, something caught on one of Toothless' back legs, and a loud rumbling followed as the cave partly collapsed! The light fury, having been trailing behind a bit, was entirely clear, but the night fury wasn't, a large rock slamming against his back and making him yelp in pain. In seconds, he was buried under the boulders, though thankfully they were surprisingly light, and he managed to get his head out from under them, nervously smiling in embarrassment of having triggered a tripwire while swimming. The light fury rolled her eyes and got to work moving away the boulders.
10 minutes were wasted as the light fury cleared enough boulders for Toothless to be freed. The others blocking the path were far too big to be moved, so they returned to the large chamber with multiple paths to hopefully find another way out, as the water that flooded the cave had to have come from somewhere. Now both dragons were starting to struggle, Toothless a little more so as he'd lost a lot of air in this dive. Another path was chosen, and the two just continued to swim. They now each had gone 3 hours without breathing and gained purple faces and oversized cheeks, and while they still had a fairly long time before they'd be forced to breathe, their lungs were starting to burn.
Another 20 minutes without a breath, and having lost a lot of air in his dive, Toothless' lungs were on fire, his face now blue. Bubbles streamed from his nostrils, and soon, his body had had enough. He froze up, shivering heavily and whining with his bubbles quickly getting bigger, until he threw his head back and his maw opened wide. A gurgling gasp echoed in the tunnel as Toothless desperately inhaled, water immediately flooding his starved lungs. The light fury watched him choke, wishing there was something she could do to help but knowing he would now just cough up whatever air she'd give him. With another gasp, the drowning night fury forced himself to keep swimming, though he was slower than before. The light fury stayed close, intermittently trying to comfort him.
Soon, they actually left the cave, but found themselves extremely far underwater in the ocean, and the light fury wasn't sure the two would be able to surface in time. Still, given the state of Toothless next to her, slurping water and hiccupping, she couldn't just give up. Both dragons continued to swim, the light fury's face now blue once again, and poor Toothless having been drowning for just over 20 minutes. He was sort of losing awareness of his surroundings, and wasn't really sure if he was still swimming, but his mate was next to him, so he must have been.
As the night fury's body started to tint blue with his extreme lack of oxygen, the two dragons finally reached the surface, the light fury repeatedly gasping heavily as she struggled to catch her breath. Toothless, however, did not, his body having given up on trying to breathe and his legs still paddling at the water, not realizing he'd surfaced. The light fury, unsure of what to do as seawater leaked from the mouth of the drowned night fury who'd started to sink back under, smacked his back a few times in an attempt to awaken him. It worked, and more water spewed from his mouth and nostrils as he jolted back to awareness, struggling to force air into his waterlogged lungs.
The light fury got another deep breath and ducked underwater, maneuvering Toothless onto her back so he could much more easily stay on the surface as he recovered, also beginning to carry him back to shore. It certainly took some time, but his face eventually returned to its typical dark grey, though he'd still breathe heavily and occasionally cough. The two reached the shore, and Toothless climbed off his mate's back, both of them hugging again, relieved that they were both okay.
Rekstone767
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