A gentle wind tossed my hair back and forth as we all flew in formation. I saw Astrid look back at Fishlegs, lagging behind the rest of the group for what looked like miles. We'd been trying to keep our speed on the slower side to not leave him behind, but we couldn't keep this up much longer, otherwise we'd miss our window. She grunted in frustration, before all of us rounded the corner, only to find the horizon before us blank. It was just the sea and the sky, no ship in sight.
"We missed it!" Snotlout cried, frustrated. With a sigh, I led the others around and had us land on the top of a sea spire.
"It was headed this way," Reign grunted. "It must've outrun us."
"How does an Outcast ship outrun our dragons?"
As if on cue, Fishlegs and Meatlug sputtered around the corner, landing with an aggressive, ground-shaking thud.
"That's how."
"Whoo! We were really moving, girl!" Fishlegs patted the back of his dragon, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around him. "What did we miss?"
"It's not what you missed, it's what we all missed!"
"Snotlout..." I cautioned.
"What? I'm just calling it like I see it," he protested. "If we didn't have slow, and really, really slow holding us back, I don't know- maybe we'd actually have a chance to do what we're supposed to be doing?"
"Snotlout, that's not-"
"That's a bit harsh," Reign interjected.
"Guys... he does have a point."
Reign and I exchanged a glance, her eyes sullen. I could tell Fishlegs' statement broke her heart, and I had to admit, it saddened me as well.
"Fishlegs..."
"No, it's no big deal, Hiccup. You guys keep looking." He was trying his best to keep his voice and facial expressions cheery as ever, but I could see the cracks beneath it. "Meatlug and I will circle back and... patrol the cliffs. Sure up the rear!"
"Are you sure about this?"
"Absolutely."
She looked back at me again, the cheery smile she usually wore on these sort of missions completely wiped from existence. I could tell she wanted to do something, but deep down, we both knew nothing either of us said could change his mind.
"Okay, um... well, use your dragon call if you spot anything."
"You know I will."
Everyone looked at each other, daring someone to move first. I knew I'd have to be the one, despite not wanting to leave Fishlegs behind. Soon as we took off, Reign moved her dragon right up next to Toothless, and her eyes refused to leave me. I slowly reached a hand out to rest on hers.
"We shouldn't have just left him," she sighed. "He's going to feel unimportant for the rest of his time on this team."
"I knew he'd just keep insisting he was fine, no matter what we said." Her expression shifted slightly, and I picked up on the readable disappointment. "Look, there's only so much I can do as a person."
"Yes, but as Hiccup Haddock, you can do more than your average person. I know you can."
I sighed, choosing to look forward again. She was right, I had to give her that. But when you're risking the safety of your island by waiting for just one person, there are other things you have to take into consideration.
"As much as I hate to admit it, I say we call it a loss for the day and head back to Berk. That ship is either too far away for us to catch now, or on its way back to Outcast Island."
She patted the top of Shriek's head twice to get her to turn back toward home. The others hesitated for a second before following her, leaving Toothless and I to fly behind the rest of the group. Reign had a tremendous amount of empathy, sometimes more than was good for her. But, I could feel the weight she carried on this one. She and Fishlegs had always been close, coming to share a love of dragons. Even before, when she had a fear of them, she and Fishlegs were the sweethearts of the group, and that'd always made them closer. He taught her everything she knew about dragons, and before she'd met Toothless, he helped her with her fear of dragons a little bit.
"Hiccup!"
Toothless suddenly jerked to the left, nearly throwing me off his back to avoid a large sea spire. I got so lost in thought, I'd forgotten I had to try and steer my dragon. He grunted in annoyance and shook his head as I turned to face Reign, who was trying her best to hide her laughter. Her hands pressed harder into the back of her dragon as her body shook with giggles, her eyes darting between me and the horizon.
"Don't think I don't see you laughing at me, Reign," I teased.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." She shrugged nonchalantly, not meeting my eyes. "I wasn't laughing, I had a chest spasm, and needed to cough."
"Mmhmm, yeah. Sure..."
I went back to scanning the water as we made our way back home. At any point, the boat could have turned around and headed toward Berk, or been used to create some sort of diversion for a greater threat heading toward my home island. The Outcasts could strike at any moment-- maybe they already struck. Everyone had been on edge, or at least, that's how it felt; all anticipating the next move, waiting to counter or fight back. It wasn't really a way to live, but it's what we had to do for now, to protect Berk.
The sun had begun to set, creating purple, golden, and pink patterns across the cloudy sky. Our dragons circled once before landing on Berk. Fishlegs had returned, and was currently cleaning Meatlug with a wide, elated smile on his face. Quite a change from his attitude earlier. As we disembarked, he started to make his way over to us, causing us all to meet in the middle.
"Did you, uh-- did you find your Outcast ship?" he asked, clearly trying to contain some sort of excitement.
"Do you see an Outcast ship?" Snotlout seethed, following a fit of babbling.
"No, we didn't find them," I clarified.
"Fishlegs!"
All of us turned to see Gobber starting our way, his eyes fixed on the sudden subject of interest. He held a sword in one hand, made of a metal with a strange sort of color. The light bounced off it in a way that almost made it appear a hot white, thin as a blade of grass. I nudged Reign, and when she looked at me curiously, I nodded my head toward it.
"Yeah..." she whispered.
"Do you know what this is?" Gobber insisted.
"No, don't tell me!" Tuffnut interjected.
"Uh... a sword," his sister answered. Tuff suddenly lunged at Ruff and started to wail on her.
"I said don't tell me!"
We all watched as they fought for a moment, before turning out attentions back to Gobber, reminded that fights were a normal, everyday occurrence for them.
"Not just any sword. Feel it."
Gobber suddenly tossed it in Fishlegs' direction and he flinched. Before it could strike him and harm him in any sort of way, Astrid reached out and grabbed it.
"I made it out of that strange lava Meatlug left in the shop."
Astrid swung the sword back and forth with ease, before passing it off to Reign. Her green eyes went wide with shock for a second, before she tossed it back and forth between her hands with ease.
"This sword is made from Gronkle lava?" I asked, quite surprised. It looked vastly different from the other swords Gobber had made.
"I prefer to call it Gronkle Iron. I got tired of waiting for it to cool. You know what I always say: pound it while it's hot. Next thing you know, bing, bang, boom! And I've created this little beauty."
Reign swung the weapon back and forth again, this time alarmingly close to my face. She seemed to be assessing it, analyzing every detail and ease of movement.
"It's pretty, but..." She tapped the blade against her palm a couple times. "...too light. It would never hold up in battle." Reign tossed it back into Gobber's hands, and I took a moment to look at her. Ever since she'd discovered she was a Berserker, she'd changed. Before that, Reign would've protested anything involving physical fights. But now, strategy seemed to be on her mind more often. I couldn't tell whether it was a good or bad thing at the moment...
"Exactly what I thought... until I did this."
He suddenly grabbed onto Snotlout and yanked him closer. Reign tensed as Gobber swung the blade down against Snotlout's own. Shockingly, the Gronkle Iron sword shattered the normal, seemingly sturdier blade.
"Oh."
"Whoa..."
"Cool."
"Awesome."
"Nice swing."
"Is there any left?" Astrid asked, an excited lilt in her voice. "I've been wanting a new dagger."
"New helmets!" the twins cried, bashing their heads together in their normal fashion.
"Ours are pretty banged up." With that, the two of them collapsed onto the ground, out cold. I got a little closer to Gobber, and the sword, trying to get a better look at it.
"Ah. Yep, it'd go pretty nice on that fancy, new shield of yours." Gobber placed the weapon in my hands.
"Exactly what I was thinking. It could make it stronger and lighter."
"Excuse me," Snotlout piped up. "Why don't you start by making me a new sword?"
"Why don't you start by getting in line?" Gobber shot back. We all turned our heads toward Gobber's smithy, catching a glimpse at the line of people stretching out from the front window. "They whole town has heard about Meatlug's Gronkle Iron, and they all want a piece of the action."
Reign looked back at Fishlegs and Meatlug, then at the line, her head bouncing back and forth a few times. A wide smile cemented itself on Fishlegs' face, and I knew that made Reign feel much better about earlier. But I could still see the guilt lingering behind her own cheery expression. We'd tossed Fishlegs into last place before this, and now, someone else had recognized his worth before his own friends. It wasn't hard to tell that's what she worried about.
"You think he's going to hate us now?" she asked, tossing her necklace back and forth.
"Reign, he's Fishlegs." I stepped closer to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "He won't even be mad in the first place."
She continued to keep her eyes on him as we all walked away.
Reign leaned against the wall as I pounded a mallet against my new shield. The whole town practically worshiped Fishlegs and his Gronkle Iron. In one day, he'd already made various weapons and a helmet, and now, I'd put the finishing touches on my shield. The line of townsfolk stretched farther back than either of us could see. She's expressed her joy that Fishlegs was getting the attention he deserved, but I knew there was something else behind it.
"This Gronkle Iron is going to do wonders for my shield," I said to Fishlegs as I picked it up, turning to face him.
"Right? How great is this stuff?" He handed someone else a sword he'd made them.
"So, what kind of rocks did you feed her?" Reign asked, stepping up. Fishlegs hesitated for a second, and I saw a sort of worry cross her face.
"Well.... actually, I can't tell... you." She raised a red eyebrow at him.
"No?" Gobber asked, coming to the front from his forge.
"It's a trade secret." Fishlegs suddenly reached for a mace and held it close to him. "If I told you, I'd have to mace you," he joked, chuckling awkwardly.
Astrid suddenly burst into the smithy and leaned against the door frame, attempting to catch her breath.
"Hiccup, the sentries say they saw another boat. We have to go now."
I only took a second to hesitate and let my eyes go wide, before Reign and I hopped up onto our dragons. I'd expected Fishlegs to follow, but when I looked back before taking off, I saw he'd stayed behind, focusing back on his work making weapons.
"You coming, Fishlegs?"
"I would love to, Hiccup, but as you can see, Meatlug and I are pretty busy." He pointed back at the line of townsfolk, which had gone down slightly, but still remained long.
I shook my head, and turned to glance at Reign for a second, who shrugged. At this point, there wasn't much we could do to get him to come with us. He was convinced he wasn't a valuable asset to our team, and here, he had something people loved him for. With another shake of my head, the three of us took off. We caught up with the others, who were surveying not too far off the island.
"Which way did they say the ship went?" Reign inquired.
"Supposedly, it headed west," she replied.
"We thought we saw something-"
"-but it turned out to just be stupid piece of driftwood."
"How..." I was about to finish my question, but upon just a glance at the twins, I realized it wasn't worth it. "Never mind."
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's head west!" Reign urged, tapping Shriek to get her to fly in the right direction. We scanned the seas for quite a while, but never came across a boat. Eventually, around midday, we decided to give up and head back to the Academy to recover.
"Well, that was a complete waste of time," I sighed, approaching the others.
"We doubled back over the same area five times," Astrid complained.
"Really? That was the same place?" Tuffnut seemed genuinely confused. "It looked so different."
"That's because you were flying upside down, you muttonhead."
"Oh, yeah... Fun, though."
"You know, we needed someone to keep track of our position," Reign sighed.
"Yeah, we did. And some low-speed hovering could've helped over that sea stack."
"I know."
"Oh, come on! You're not talking about him, are you?" Snotlout sneered.
"No, not him!" Tuffnut paused for a second. "Or you? Hey, who are we talking about?"
"I have no idea, but he sounds important, so it definitely can't be you."
"We're talking about Fishlegs," I sighed.
"We're a team. And on a team, everybody has a role to play."
"Reign's right. We're all important." I glanced at her for a moment. It was nice to see some things about her weren't going to change. "When one of us is missing... it's just not the same." Per the usual, Snotlout scoffed.
"This is your fault. You made him quit" He pointed an accusatory finger in my direction. I glanced at the girl on my right, that sense of guilt washing and taking over me. Several looks crossed her face, as though she were attempting to figure out how to gauge the situation.
"Let's... let's go find Fishlegs, try to talk to him. And... let's hope he'll want to come back to the team."
She led the rest of us out of the academy and toward Gobber's smithy, where we knew Fishlegs would still be. A small crowd of Vikings remained gathered around, though now they were shouting and protesting angrily. Reign reached for my hand and squeezed it once as we approached. I could tell she wanted to take the calm approach to this, but before she could speak up, Astrid pushed past us and pointed straight at the blonde Viking.
"There he is! What are we gonna do?"
"I could pound on him until he agrees to come back," Snotlout offered, striking his fist against his opposite palm.
"Or we could just ask him," I suggested, trying to keep the situation from escalating.
"What's wrong with the pounding? I like pounding; I like pound cake, I like measuring my weight in pounds-"
Reign scoffed as I broke free from her grasp and peeked through the crowd, attempting to catch Fishlegs' attention.
"Fishlegs!" I called. When he didn't look up, I ran over to the other side of the crowd and called out again, this time waving my hands in the air and jumping. Though it didn't catch his attention, the crowd seemed to think that was an invitation to starting chanting his name. Gobber approached Fishlegs and muttered something to him, but I couldn't hear it over the crowd. He turned around, and his hand flew to his head, making him look as though he were going to have a panic attack.
"Should we step in?"
Just before I could say anything, Fishlegs turned around and shouted out to the crowd, "hold onto your tunics, folks! You want the Gronkle Iron? You've got the Gronkle Iron." Reign rested her hand in front of her mouth, watching as Fishlegs went back into the smithy.
"He's lost it..." she muttered. Carefully, I rested a hand on her shoulder.
"He's Fishlegs. He's definitely come up with an idea."
And I had full faith in that. At least, until Fishlegs came sprinting out of the smithy, closely following Meatlug, who was in a scattered panic.
"Oh, boy..."
I watched in shock as a bucket and a pot flew right at Meatlug and attached themselves to her body as she ran. This... was not good.
"Let's go."
Each of us hopped up onto our dragons, and flew up above the village to try and find where Meatlug had run off to. It wasn't hard, we just had to look for the large metal objects appearing as though they could fly. Unfortunately, the objects I spotted were a trio of spears, their points heading straight for Meatlug. I pushed Toothless to fly faster, and get as close to the ground as possible. Soon as we were close enough, Toothless fired blasts at the weapons, causing them to break apart and fall to the ground in charred pieces.
"Nice shot, bud," I praised.
"Hiccup, you have to help Meatlug!" Fishlegs called from below me, rushing after his dragon.
"What's wrong with her?"
"I don't know! She's attracting metal... she's really scared." I looked around until an idea popped into my head.
"Okay! Snotlout, we've gotta herd her away from town."
"On it!" The two of us dove to get closer to Meatlug in an attempt to chase her out of town. "You're all mine, Meaty." Hookfang hovered right next to her, but Fishlegs must have picked up on something I missed when a different form of panic crossed the fleeing dragon's face.
"Wait! Stop! Heel!"
Hookfang came to an abrupt stop, causing Snotlout to launch out of his saddle and fly into a bag of apples in front of a merchant's stand.
"I meant to do that, you know." he grunted as Toothless and I continued to pursue Meatlug. She flew into the forest, thankfully out of harm's way. She did, however, begin knocking down trees, so I pulled Toothless up above the cover in order to safely get to her. That did, however, make it harder to find her. I continued to stare down at the ground for a few more seconds, before determining I needed a new method
"This isn't working. Let's try getting ahead and cutting her off."
Toothless quickly dove down below the canopy the trees made, and thankfully, we pulled up right beside her.
"Here we go, bud. This way!"
Before we could swoop down in front of her, she came to the teetering edge of a cliff, leading to a drop straight into water, from a height that would break your bones if your slipped.
"Meatlug!"
As Toothless and I landed, she jumped and turned to face the two of us, her tail bludgeon wagging slightly. Carefully, I dismounted my dragon with my arms outstretched.
"It's me, girl. You remember me: your old pal Hiccup. Nothing to be afraid of. We'll figure this out, but you have to stay still."
My heart began to race as she quickly began to back closer to the edge, a few pebbles beneath her crumbling.
"NO, no, no, no, no. Easy, easy, girl. We're here to help you."
"Hiccup!"
I nearly jumped as I turned around to see Fishlegs running toward us.
"Not now, Fishlegs."
"No, no, no. You don't understand."
"Not now, Fishlegs!"
"It's metal!"
Just as it hit me, I felt myself being pulled to the ground, and unwillingly dragged against Meatlug, my metal leg sticking up straight.
"Oh. Gotcha."
I suddenly felt like a doll, flopping to and fro in the hand of a child as Meatlug took off.
"Hey! Where are you guys going?"
"Absolutely no idea!"
The sea beneath us proved a menacing enemy, threatening to snap me in half if I dropped off Meatlug. The sea stacks didn't prove any more comfort as I dangled so close to one, I nearly smacked my head against it.
Then, like a speedy savior, Fishlegs and Toothless caught up to us. The two of us awkwardly stared at each other for a few moments, as though waiting for the other to give a signal that it was time for a rescue.
"Hey."
"Hey..."
"How's it going?"
"Better than expected." The wind suddenly caused Toothless to lurch, which made Fishlegs' eyes go wide.
"Yeah, so... this might be a bad time, but I wanted to say I'm sorry for leaving you behind the other day." He stuck his hand out.
"Hiccup-"
"I know, I know, you volunteered. But still, I-"
"Hiccup! I'm trying to concentrate here."
"Oh... right, sorry."
Then, behind him, I saw what we'd been searching for the past few days: that Outcast ship, causally sailing through the calm waters.
"Wait!"
"Seriously. Can we talk about our feelings later?"
"No, look!" I pointed past him in order to draw his attention to the ship behind him. I managed to swing myself around and cling onto Meatlug's leg.
"They're getting ready to fire!"
"I know! I've got an idea. Dive!"
Meatlug began to spin as she plummeted closer to the sea, while Toothless and Fishlegs followed with close composure. Just before she cannonballed into the water, I had Meatlug level herself out and fly as close to the ship as we could get without getting poked by any of the spears sticking out of the side. Just as they were about to fire, the ship listed toward Meatlug, and all their weapons flew from their hands.
"Excellent!" I cried, laughing as we flew away. My joy was shot-lived, however, when I noticed the weapons were still following us. "Whoa, less excellent."
I glanced around, finding myself to be out of options in the middle of the ocean. Thankfully, Fishlegs and Toothless pulled up beneath us, and he reached out to tickle the underbelly of his dragon. Somehow, that worked, and all metals dropped down into the sea. I reached out and managed to wrap my arms around Toothless' tail.
"Hey, good plan. Yay, team!" I shifted myself back into a sitting position, and Fishlegs jumped back onto his dragon. "Ah, much better."
The two of us made our way back to Berk, where I found Reign waiting for the two of us. As soon as Toothless and I landed, she approached with a smile, arms crossed against her stomach.
"I'd assume you solved the problem?"
"Yeah."
"And apologized to Fishlegs?"
"Everything's all fixed, Reign."
She laughed and brushed some hair from her face.
"Good, because we've got to get working on some drills, and we need him."
I pretended to roll my eyes at her, but jumped back up onto Toothless and followed behind her and Shriek. The two of us found him at Gobber's smithy, having a small conversation with him. The two girls shot down and smiled as she called out to Fishlegs.
"Fishlegs, where have you been? We've been looking all over the island for you! We need you!"
And with a smile on his face, Fishlegs hopped up onto Meatlug and followed behind her.