Sigrid had gone along with Dagur and Heather, back to Berserker Island, to get a head start on rebuilding. She had a lot of experience, after all, and she was confident that hadn't changed. It was strange, though, following a similar routine she had many years ago. With all these attacks, Sigrid felt fifteen again, in the height of Berk's dragon raids.
But what was even stranger, is that it was obvious that it seemed to be only Berk so far who had to deal with dragon raids. Or, at least, it was obvious that Berserker Island hadn't, but she already figured that from Dagur's old idiotics about dragons. Sigrid had always been aware that Berk used to be a land of 'kill or be killed', but had it really been that bad?
It hadn't even been a day before Hiccup sent a Terror mail their way. They'd found Viggo, and now they had a different plan in mind; preparing for the next attack, on Dragon's Edge.
Hiccup had been anxious, but put on a brave face as he prepared everyone for their eventual battle. Not only did he have people to save, there was now also a dragon at play, a Titan at that.
"Alright, gang. We have until dawn, they'll be in range by then." Hiccup spoke as he paced back and forth in front of the group.
Besides Sigrid, Dagur wasn't paying that much attention to Hiccup's story, as he seemed to be too busy biting his fingernails. Sigrid smacked his hand from his mouth with a frown, silently telling him to stop it.
"Hiccup, I had a thought." Snotlout started. "Now, follow me on this. Okay. Come along for the ride. -" Sigrid raised her brow. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm not completely attached to this place, right? Let it burn to the ground. -"
No one agreed with that.
"-I mean it's been fun, great views. But is it worth dying over? That's what you have to ask yourself. Alright, let's take a vote. Anyone?"
Sigrid uncrossed her arms.
"Why do you assume you're going to die?" She questioned with a sneer.
"I mean... I don't." Snotlout huffed with a nonchalant shrug. "It's just- I don't know about any of you, if you know what I mean."
The redhead rolled her eyes.
"No, I don't know what you mean." She snarled. "If you're in the mentality that you, or any of us, are guaranteed to die, then I'm politely asking you to step out of this battle."
"No, Sigrid, we need him- even if I hate to say it. We need all of us." Astrid argued.
Sigrid crossed her arms, Dagur's eyes widened as he realised an argument was starting, and he definitely did not want to be caught in the middle of it.
"What we need is Vikings who are either all in, or all out, there is no in between." Sigrid stood her ground. "If Snotlout, or anyone else is on the fence about that, they're welcome to leave."
Dagur raised his hand with a worried twitch. "Sigrid, sweetheart, let's calm down-"
"No!" Sigrid huffed. "When Berk was fighting dragons every other day, there was no option for neutrality! You were either with us, or against us. What makes this any different?"
"We're not in that situation anymore." Hiccup assured.
Sigrid shook her head.
"Aren't we?" She questioned, before gesturing around the sky. "Because to me, this feels exactly like how it used to be. But instead of a nest of dragons, it's Dragon Hunters in a ship riding a Tidal Class!"
She panted, before rubbing her furrowed brow.
"I realize that you didn't get to understand what that felt like. You've never been through something this big before. I get that." Sigrid sighed. "But if you're not prepared to go in full force, than you're allowing yourself to get distracted, and that will get you hurt, or even killed. Trust me, I know it."
Hiccup sighed.
"Then trust me when I say 'that is not going to happen'." He laid a reassuring hand on his sister's shoulder. "I have a plan, and I can promise you that no one will get hurt."
"If any one of you gets hurt, I'll kill you."
"Woah-kay, no you won't." Hiccup quickly countered his sister's statement. "What my sister means to say is, be careful."
"I still don't get why we're not ditching this place." Snotlout shrugged.
Really not a good time to be stupid.
"Snotlout, if we don't stop them here, where do you think they're gonna go next?"
It took Snotlout way too long to think of an answer.
"To Berk! They're going to go to Berk, our Berk. We have to make a stand here and do whatever it takes to stop them."
Snotlout crossed his arms. "So, that's one nay. No surprise there."
Dagur had to clasp his arms tightly around Sigrid's waist to stop her from going over there and killing the short Viking. In her defense, her reaction was justified considering her feelings, but that didn't make it morally right. And besides, a dead teammate wouldn't help their situation now, would it?
"Dagur, could you and Shattermaster cover the backside of the Edge?" Hiccup turned towards the Berserker who still held a tight grasp around a slowly calming Sigrid. "With the time you've spent sneaking around, you'll have an advantage."
"On my way." He saluted, releasing his hand from his girlfriend's waist. "And, uh- I take that as a compliment by the way, the sneaking around part."
"Of course you do." Hiccup wasn't surprised. "Snotlout, you and Hookfang get the Gronckle Iron walls up on the huts. Sigrid, I want you to patrol any area you can, safely, and get rid of any hunters trying to get to the Edge, I'll find you when we need you. Fishlegs, take the Eruptodon hatchling to the center of the island and find a safe place to hide."
Snotlout didn't agree with this plan. "Wait, he gets to hide? We can hide just as well."
Ignoring his cries, Sigrid nodded to her brother and whistled for Electrode; who had been busy playing with his Eel plushy in the distance. Together, they prepared to the skies. A fast dragon held a lot of positives, and this was one of them; she'd get to protect everyone on the Edge, just the way she liked it, in her own older sisterly way.
She could practically hear the twins calling her 'Mommy Sigrid' in the back of her head, and shook those thoughts away. She was a lot of things, but a mother was definitely not one of them.
Sunrise approached fast, and Sigrid watched from the skies as the first blast was fired. Soaring towards the Riders' huts, she called out to the others.
"Incoming!"
She had no choice but to dash inside her brother's hut with him, together with Electrode, to hide from the initial blast. She just hoped that Dagur was okay... and Fishlegs, of course.
"Okay, I don't know about any of you, but there's no way I'm sitting through that again." Snotlout started, again, after entering the clubhouse. "We have dragons. We should be out there sinking those ships."
"The fire isn't coming from the ships, it's coming from the Shellfire." Hiccup sure had a lot more patient left than his sister did, but even his was slowly running out with Snotlout.
"I hate to be the one to say I told you so, but..." Viggo's sudden appearance shocked everyone in the room.
But nothing shocked Viggo more than suddenly being pinned to the wooden wall with an axe to his throat, and his feet dangling off the floor.
"How did you get out?" Sigrid growled.
Viggo only smirked, he knew that Hiccup would never allow her to kill him. It wasn't in his nature.
"Ah, Sigrid my dear, how good to see you again." He greeted, as if he didn't have freshly sharpened Gronckle Iron against his throat. "My friend, Snotlout, was kind enough to allow me to use the facilities."
Sigrid groaned in disgust before backing off, making Viggo fall back on his feet.
"Oh, he did, did he?" Hiccup commented with his hands on his hips.
"What?" Snotlout defended with a wave of his hands, before cowering away from Viggo's gaze. "He scares me..." He shivered. "Besides, when you gotta go, you gotta go. And who knows that better than me."
"Hiccup, you must allow me to assist you, for the sake of us all." Viggo tried again. "The Shellfire's range is over a mile. Ryker is using ships, my ships to be exact, to protect it."
Astrid uncrossed her arms.
"Then we need to get past the ships." She spoke to Hiccup.
Yep, they were definitely dating.
"Then we better do it quickly." Hiccup spoke after hearing the outside shudder from another fired blast. "Ruff, Tuff, you're up."
"We're on it." The twins saluted, before going on their merry way.
Astrid, Hiccup and Sigrid walked towards the door, before Snotlout cried out again.
"Hey, what about me?"
The outside began to rumble again, at another fired blast. Hiccup looked back with sass.
"Look after your new best friend, there." He gestured to Viggo.
"Where's the fun in that?" Snotlout huffed.
"It's not supposed to be fun!"
After Hiccup left in a huff, Snotlout shot a hopeful gaze the other Haddock's way.
"Don't even look at me." Sigrid sneered. "I am not babysitting him."
Hiccup couldn't help but jump in again, just to make sure he got his point across clearly.
"And I don't care how scary he is, do not let him out of your sight again."
Sigrid had never seen that many ships in the waters, not even during the war with the Berserkers. And now, she had even more to worry about than the amount of hunters, she also had to make sure to not hurt the Tidal Class dragon. She couldn't imagine what it was going through, poor thing.
"Okay, we need to slow them down a little and move on. If they fire at us, we fire back." Hiccup spoke as they neared the ships.
Sigrid, Astrid and Heather flew close behind him. They were the fastest and most skilled out of the group - if you asked them - so they were well needed for this battle, even if it greatly pained Sigrid's heart to not know how her boyfriend was doing. She trusted him and Shattermaster to keep each other safe.
"Look out!" Sigrid yelled out as a blast of arrows was sent their way, the five of them barely dodging it as they twirled around the air.
But they made a quick recovery, continuing to dodge all incoming arrows and boulders as they blasted the ships. Electrode shocking many hunters along the way, with Stormfly doing most of the boat-sinking damage as Sigrid and Astrid flew together, whilst Heather and Hiccup split off to the other set of ships.
Until now, they were doing amazing. But the sinking of those ships wasn't the battle they came here for.
Sigrid spotted her brother and Astrid sending a smile each other's way, and smirked at the obviousness of their feelings. To be fair, Hiccup had a crush on her ever since he was little, so it wasn't really that surprising. She and Heather shared a look of familiarity, after having gone through something very similar with both of their respective partners, Hiccup and Astrid were very obvious.
Nearing closer to the Shellfire, they discovered something big. They were hammering the poor dragon to its gut, and it was shooting out in defense at its pain. The closer they got to it, the quicker and harder the hunters seemed to slam down their giant hammers. Sigrid wanted to slam her axe down on their heads, see how they liked that.
"There's no way to control it without hurting it." Hiccup noted after their struggling fight.
"We might not have a choice, Hiccup." Astrid pointed out.
Hiccup didn't agree with her statement. "No. There's gotta be another way."
He would do anything to protect a dragon, even during their hardest times. He'd proven that before, and he wasn't going to change that now.
"Snotlout!" Sigrid spat as she watched the Viking approach on his dragon.
Hiccup whipped around in surprise at her shouting.
"Whoa! Aren't you supposed to be watching Viggo?" He questioned, before looking into the direction of the captured Hunter. "Is that the stables on fire?
It was final, Sigrid was going to kill Snotlout.
"You said don't let him out no matter what." Snotlout defended himself.
Sigrid couldn't stand it. "Snotlout, use your brain!"
"Good Thor, you're both so mercurial!" Snotlout huffed. "Viggo taught me that, I don't know what it means."
Sigrid sighed, her eyes narrowing at the burning stables, before she made her decision.
"I'm going to get him." She told her brother, who seemed to have been thinking the same thing.
Astrid could tell that Hiccup was hesitating, seeming to be paying very close attention to him this whole time.
"Go, we'll be fine." She assured him.
"Oh... let's hope this isn't the biggest mistake of our lives, bud." Hiccup mumbled to his dragon before looking at his sister. "I'm going with you."
With a nod from his sister, both Haddocks flew down towards the burning stables with the highest speed they could manage. To Electrode's disappointment, Toothless still beat him in speed.
But Sigrid had faster reaction time, and an alarming lack of fear.
Viggo was - quite obviously - surprised to see the redheaded Hooligan come to his rescue, but he definitely wasn't going to question it. Ripping the chains from the door, Sigrid hoisted the man up with his arm around her shoulder.
"Sigrid, you came all the way back to rescue me. I'm honored." Viggo coughed.
Sigrid groaned.
"Don't gloat in it." She grumbled, before throwing his body outside of the stable doors, as Viggo gasped for fresh air. "If I left you there to die... one, my brother would be mad at me, and two, it would make me just like you."
Viggo knew that she was talking about the Scourge, but made no attempt to apologize for it.
"Well, you'll be glad you returned." He caught his breath. "I can help, if you will allow me."
"How? How are you gonna help?" Hiccup stood in front of his sister, confronting the man she'd just rescued from the burning building.
"I can advise you on defeating my brother and stopping the Shellfire." Viggo spoke.
Hiccup huffed. "You got that all figured out, do ya?"
"As luck would have it, I do."
Sigrid wasn't going to listen to this anymore, and her worry was beginning to spike up again after all the turmoil, it was making her anxious.
"Hiccup, I'm going to find Dagur."
Her brother nodded, given her silent permission to do so. Not that he was planning to argue anyway. He would do the same if it were Astrid.
"Be safe."
Sigrid nodded "I will."
With a final goodbye, Sigrid and Electrode soared off to the backside of the island, where Dagur was supposed to be. And to their luck, and immense relief, it appeared that he still was... hiding behind a boulder from a group of hunters.
Yeah, not going to happen.
But to her surprise, it seemed that someone else was thinking that same thing. It was Sleuther, the goofy yet gentle Triple Stryke they'd rescued from the Dragon Fights. Whatever made him step in, Sigrid didn't know, but she couldn't help but laugh as the dragon had absolutely no trouble taking out those hunters on his own.
Sleuther looked up in recognition as Sigrid landed, taking out one hunter that had attempted to run, and his eyes shone with glee as he greeted her with a waggle of his bundled tail. Sigrid decided that she'd let him have his fun for now, and check in on her Berserker boyfriend instead. Electrode let her go on by herself, preferring to tumble alongside the Triple Stryke, and maybe land a few people into the ocean.
But it seemed that Dagur hadn't noticed her yet, instead extremely distracted by the fighting noises caused by Sleuther, until Sigrid cleared her throat from on top of the boulder.
"Hello there." Sigrid chuckled as Dagur's gaze snapped up towards her, grip tight on his axe before he realised it was her.
"My darling!" Dagur cried out as he saw her, axe thrown by the side as he reached his arms out to catch her from sliding down the stone. "Are you okay? You're not hurt are you?"
"Honey, I'm fine." Sigrid assured, checking him over for any wounds of his own. "Are you okay? Is Shattermaster-"
The dragon in question gave a weak whine as Sigrid glanced over towards him, he wanted to go up and greet her so badly, but it seemed that he didn't have the strength to do so.
"What happened?" Sigrid gasped as she cradled the poor Gronckle's face, feeling rage build up in her stomach from the thoughts of what those hunters did to him.
"No time to explain." Dagur shook his head as he leaned up against the rock, axe in hand once again. "You stay here with Shattermaster, I'm going in."
Sigrid raised her brow. "Dagur that's really not ne-"
"Well, hello there mister Triple Stryke!" Dagur greeted at the dragon who had already done his job for him, as Sigrid chuckled from her place. "You certainly are full of surprises aren't you? Dagur likes surprises."
Sleuther screeched in Dagur's face; to most an invitation of battle, but to those who knew dragons, it was a request. And Sleuther could be very demanding.
Dangling his tail out in front of Dagur's face, Sleuther grew impatient as the Berserker was clearly not understanding his demand. Coming closer, with another cry, Dagur seemed to finally catch on.
Dagur chuckled in delight at the invitation, before grabbing ahold of his tail. "We got this, bud!"
Copycat. Sigrid chuckled. That's my thing... and Hiccup's.
Dagur was absolutely over the moon as he rode on Sleuther's back, nothing but praises coming out of his mouth. He was definitely a fan of the Triple Stryke, alright.
"Brother!" Dagur's call made Sigrid turn her head away from poor Shattermaster, seeing her brother soar down on Toothless.
"Made a new friend, huh?" Hiccup questioned in amusement, even he hadn't seen this coming.
Dagur was very excited about it.
"Seems so!" He nodded. "Don't you just love the tails? And that snapping sound. Whoo! Gives me goosies."
Electrode had clearly had enough about not being recognized in his part of the victory, and chose to display that with roaring bolts of lightning from the sky, taking out the last few hunters on the stranded ships. Such a baby.
"...Well, that's the last of 'em." Hiccup noted with a shrug.
"Well done, Electrode!" Dagur praised.
Electrode seemed to almost roll his eyes like a teenager at the praise he had been so desperately looking for. But, apparently, if it wasn't coming from Sigrid, he didn't want it. So, he decided to take his business elsewhere; to Sigrid's kneeling figure besides the wobbling Gronckle.
The shaking from Dragon's Edge's volcano brought a new sense of urgency to the group.
"You and Sigrid get Shattermaster back to Berk." Hiccup advised. "She'll find Gobber, he can help."
"Where are you going?" Sigrid questioned with a raised brow before Dagur could even open his mouth.
"I have a feeling Fishlegs is in trouble." Hiccup told his sister, as he continued to stare in the volcano's direction, before speaking to Dagur. "Go, brother. Your dragon needs you."
Sigrid's brows almost jumped off her forehead from how high they raised. Brother? That's new. Dagur seemed just as amazed, but with a big smile instead.
Shattermaster tried his best to walk towards the couple, with some nudges from Electrode, but he couldn't get far before he whined in pain. Sigrid was by his side again in an instant. Her brother was right, they needed to get him to Berk.
"How fast can you build a platform?" Sigrid spoke to Dagur after making sure Shattermaster stayed down.
"Uh... pretty fast, I think?" Dagur rubbed his chin in thought.
"Prove it." Sigrid challenged him with a grin.
That really seemed to get his adrenaline going.
"Oh, I see what you're doing." Dagur noted with a smirk, before reality set in once again when Shattermaster peeped in pain. "I'll be as fast as I can."
---
"But how can Electrode carry two people and a Gronckle?" Dagur questioned with a raised brow, after they'd carefully rolled Shattermaster onto the platform.
Sigrid raised her brow, before mentioning over to Sleuther.
"Oh, right!" Dagur gasped. "I have two dragon's now! Right?" He asked the Triple Stryke, who screeched in agreement.
Electrode might've not been able to carry two riders and a Gronckle to Berk, but Electrode and Sleuther sure could.
Gobber was in for a hell of a surprise.
Perhaps this was the time to also talk to her father about her relationship with Dagur, before the Chief send one more foul glare to the back of his head, everytime Dagur stepped even one inch closer to her.