"Right, yes," Marta said. "Jannick. He's a genius, truly. He has an eye for details and patterns that's unlike anything I've ever seen, and he never forgets a single thing. He can read almost any language if he has long enough to find the patterns in it, and he and I have put together a bit of a reference library here on the island."

"A library?" Fishlegs gasped. "That sounds amazing!"

"It is," Marta grinned, "but it's all Jannick's turf, so you'll all need to follow his rules. He takes in the world very differently, which is partly why he's so talented—but it means that he doesn't always know how to behave, and when he gets overwhelmed he can get very upset. It's important that only two or three people are with him at a time, with no sudden noise. And you must be very patient with him."

"Okay," Hiccup said. "That sounds pretty fair."

"Oh," Marta said, "And you should probably keep the dragons out of sight for the time being. Some of the people here might find them a bit, ah, stressful."

"Is there somewhere else we can take them?"

"There are some caves in the cliffs by the north shore of the island," Marta said. "They're surrounded by forest—that's probably your best bet."

"Perfect," Hiccup said. "Snotlout, can you get the dragons off the ship and fly them the long way around? As in, not over the island?"

"Yeah, yeah, no problem."

He left the house without further complaint.

Hiccup turned back to Marta. "How soon can we meet Jannick and get started?"

"It's still early," she said. "He probably isn't awake yet-he's not much of an early riser." Marta stood up from the table. "It's better if you meet him in the afternoon, after he's done recovering from whatever nonsense he was up late doing last night."

"In the meantime," she continued, "Are you all hungry? Tired? You must've had a long trip-we're four days out from Berk, easily."

"Oh, we didn't come from Berk," Fishlegs said. "We left from our outpost, so it was only two."

Astrid snorted. "Yeah, only two days trapped in a cargo hold with six other vikings and six dragons," she said, rolling her eyes. "It was a regular picnic."

"Seriously," Ruffnut said. "Don't get too close to us, there, Marta." She sniffed at the edge of her tunic. "Whew!"

Marta laughed. "So it sounds like a bath might be first on the agenda, then," she said.

"Oh my gods, yes please," Astrid said.

"Why don't the three of you come with me," Marta said, addressing the girls. "As for the boys, I'll have Trader Johann show you around the island first. He's been here often enough that he knows the place well."

Astrid cast a glance at Hiccup, looking for confimration that it was a good idea to leave. He waved her ahead. "Sure, yeah," he said, sounding flustered. "Go and, uh, bathe. We'll see you later. Afterward."

"Oookay," Astrid said, and she, Heather and Ruffnut followed Marta out of the yellow fish-scale house.

As soon as they were out of sight Hiccup grasped at Fishlegs' shoulder, agitated. "Oh my Thor, Fishlegs, we smell terrible," he said. "Why did I not realize that?"

"Oh jeez," Fishlegs nodded, sniffing. "Yep, not our best first impression."

The two both turned to Tuffnut, who hadn't said anything since they'd come into the house nearly an hour before. He was sitting on a crate in the corner, resting his chin on both palms, staring dreamily into space.

"Uh. Tuff?" Hiccup waved a hand in the air.

He started. "Huh? Oh, hey."

"You okay over there? You were looking pretty deep in thought," Hiccup said.

"I am great, Hiccup," he replied. "Never been better, my man." He sprang up into a dramatic stance, flexing both arms like a wrestler. "Prime condition!"

"O...okay."

Just then the door banged open and Snotlout marched back into the room, dragging Trader Johann behind him.

"Johann!" Hiccup said, turning away from the posing Viking with some relief. "Marta said you could give us a tour?"

Meanwhile, Marta led the other three dragon riders through the village, where people were beginning to wake up. There were chickens running around underfoot, and a few men and women had come outside, getting started on the day's chores.

An older man hanging laundry out to dry waved silently to Marta as they passed, smiling, and she waved silently back.

A woman who looked to be in her mid-forties, feeding the chickens at her feet, stopped to greet them as well. "Morning, Marta!" she said. "Who're these three?"

"Warriors from Berk," Marta replied, grinning.

"Berk?" the woman said. "That's a long way off."

"Aye," she nodded. "They've just gotten off the boat, so we can't stay, but you can meet them at dinner, Ida!"

The four kept walking, following the curve of the harbour through the village. Heather seemed to have recovered from her outburst earlier, and she finally spoke up again. "How many people live on Sigrùn, Marta?"

"Just shy of thirty, I think," she answered. "Everyone knows each other here, so you three stick out quite a bit."

"All these houses, just for thirty people?" Ruffnut said, starting to count them. "Seems like a lot."

"Well, almost everyone lives by themselves," Marta replied. "It isn't like a regular village where there's a whole family to every hut."

"How long has it been here?" Astrid said. "I can't believe I've never heard a word about this place before."

"Probably a very long time, in one form or another," Marta said, "but it's only been a proper village like this for about ten years."

They had reached the edge of the harbour, and Marta led them between two huts toward the woods behind them.

"The ocean currents probably haven't changed much over the last few decades," she continued, "so I imagine that folks have been shipwrecking here for quite a while-but when I arrived, almost ten years back now, there were only a dozen people here, camped out around the island in different places." She paused for a moment. "A lot of people probably didn't survive long on their own in the wilderness."

There was silence for a moment as the women walked.

"Ten years..." Heather paused. "Marta, how old are you?"

"Twenty-two next winter!"

"So you shipwrecked here when you were, what, eleven?"

"I did."

"Whoa," Ruffnut supplied, breaking the resulting silence.

"But that's..." Heather stammered. "How did you survive?"

Marta led them through the woods toward a thick band of rock, and they followed along the edge of it.

"Luck, mostly," Marta said. "And the others helped me. The island I came from isn't really far from here, so I didn't drift long, and I was still awake when I wrecked on the seastacks. I pretty well screamed like a banshee until someone came and found me."

"It was different then," she continued. "Everyone was scared of each other. They all came from different places, they were mad and all alone. But because I was so young, I wasn't as threatening. A man called Finnur took me in and kept me safe-and seeing him take care of me was enough to gain the trust of some of the others on the island too."

There was silence again, and again Ruffnut interjected. "Jeez."

"Jeez indeed," Marta said. "So about twelve of us set up camp together, pooled our resources...and eventually we learned to watch for wrecked ships as they came in, so our numbers grew by, well, immigration, I guess you could call it." She smirked.

"Wow," Astrid said. "So who are all these people?"

"Well, they're everyone," she replied. "A lot of former warriors, actually, who went mad from the pressures of battle." Astrid's brow furrowed as Marta continued. "Some elders who are losing their memories, as well. There are a few folks who were quite ordinary-carpenters, farmers, fishermen, bakers-but they up and went mad all of a sudden. And a few others who were born stark raving mad like me," she said, grinning wryly.

"Anyway," Marta said, pausing at a spot along the rocks, "this is the entrance to the spring. You just have to push through the brush-" she shoved aside a thick curtain of ivy, revealing a low cave in the side of the rock. "and it's just through here!"

Marta held the ivy aside, and the three women stepped past her, ducking their heads to enter the cave.