Astrid rummaged through old yellowed scrolls and documents, searching frantically for the potion that would reverse what she'd done to Moxie. The more she thought about what Moxie was probably doing right now (crying, laying miserably on the forest floor, hopelessly wandering an uncharted island, et cetera et cetera), the more she realized how wrong she'd been. In truth, Moxie was flying through the Hidden World with her new Nightfury friend having a great time, but Astrid didn't know that. So she was desperately trying not to punch herself while trying to fix this problem she'd caused. She kept looking over her shoulder, hoping nobody would walk in and ask what she was doing. She didn't have a good excuse, and she didn't dare tell anyone that it was her fault Moxie was missing.

She opened a scroll and read it. It was the ingredients to a muscle ointment. "Aarrgh! Nothing, there's nothing here!" She grumbled. She looked out the window. The first stars were starting to appear in the sky as it started to turn purple. She sighed. "This is hopeless..." Her eyes landed on a cabinet. This was Gothi's secret cabinet, and though it was located in the library and not locked, no one ever dared to open it lest they got a swift thwack on the head. She looked around. Nobody was watching. She quietly approached the cabinet and reached for the door handle. She pulled it open, and to her relief, it opened as silent as a moth's wings. Inside were several scrolls, and they looked ancent. She reached out and grabbed one that was sitting on a shelf alone. She read the title. She suppressed a gasp. Gothi actually had this!? What would she be doing with this? Astrid briefly had suspicious thoughts towards Gothi before snapping back to reality. She tucked the scroll into her coat. This is what she needed.

~

Hiccup waited on the dock with Valka and Moxie's father. The search party ships were in the distance, coming closer. "They better have found her." Moxie's father said under his breath. Valka put a hand on his shoulder. She stayed silent. Hiccup had a brief moment to reflect on all the times he'd simply flown out on Toothless instead of waiting for the ships on the dock before a shout rang out. It was a man. He was shouting from the ship. It took a while for anyone to understand it, but eventually the message got across: Moxie had not been found. Moxie's father sighed. He was stressed. Hiccup could see it. He himself had been rather stressed, and couldn't imagine how the man felt. His daughter was missing, seemingly without any trace. Unless that dragon he'd seen had taken her, or... 'No, not possible.' He thought to himself. The legend was fairly well-known, but nobody thought it was true. A human turning into a dragon? His thoughts drifted to the dragon's eyes... A Lighfury did have blue eyes, it wasn't unusual, except for the fact that the dragon's eyes had been a very familiar, brilliant sparkling blue that he'd only seen in one human's eyes--Moxie's. 

The dragon had indeed been female. And she'd looked confused and scared. And she'd panicked and flew off the dock, with the skills of a hatchling. Adult dragons didn't act like that. On top of this evidence, the dragon had made growling sounds that sounded eerily like she'd been trying to communicate with him. He shook his head slowly. No way, that wasn't possible. It was just a coincidence...a very strange, very specific to this situation coincidence...

~

Astrid gathered together all the ingredients on her kitchen table and began reading the instructions she'd gotten from Gothi's cabinet. She carefully measured and mixed and boiled and skimmed exactly as the ancient scroll said untill she had a bubbling, smelly, pitch black concoction that resembled the substance you wound up with if you melted dragon scales that had been soaked in fish brine for eight months. Vikings used to use the stuff for fireproofing, but Astrid had made something intended for ingestion. She wrinkled her nose at the smell. No way was anyone gonna drink this unless they were a human-turned-dragon who was desperate to go back to her father and knew what it was. Satisfied, she put the potion in a wineskin and slung it over her shoulder. Now, to find that dragon...