Feeling the heavy force slam into her from the side, Heather was easily tackled into the sand. For a moment she wondered if her dragon had rushed forth and pushed her out of the way, however she could hear her dragon roar from behind, a far enough distance to be unable to even touch her. Wiping the sand on her face she looked to find that it was Farran himself! He had just appeared from nowhere in the nick of time to save her from being blasted. The second he had tackled her to the ground he wasted no time in confronting the bulky threat and with his sword still in hand he twisted from Heather to the dragon and swung his weapon upwards slashing through the left side of its face. The creature roared loudly in pain as it recieved a fresh scar stretching from its jaw bone to the area just below the eye. Before Heather could protest her own dragon joined in the attack and shot the dragon with a powerful attack of its own, hitting it in the neck doing no visual damage. Thankfully it was enough to persuade the strange beast that this meal wasn't worth the trouble and before either Farran or Windshear could continue their assault, it retreated at a surprisingly quick speed given its weight and small limbs. Its tail, similar to a night fury's but fatter was the last thing that they saw of it. Farran refused to lower his guard until the last bubble reached the surface. He then turned to Heather and offered his hand which she accepted. Once she was pulled to her feet she found herself staring at an unamused and angry Farran, feeling a little intimidated.

"Care to explain what that was about?" He asked right away.

"What was what about?" She defended.

"You! You were standing right in front of that thing offering yourself as its dinner!" He snapped furiously.

"I was just trying to-"

"Do you even know what kind of dragon that was? No of course you didn't otherwise you would have kept your distance!"

"Wait! You know what that was?" Heather quickly asked, mostly to try and change the subject. Farran sighed and started to pull Heather by the arm back over to Windshear as though worried that the creature would re-emerge.

"What you just nearly died from is a bulky tidal class dragon called a Salt chucker. The reason it's called that is because its body absorbs the salt from the sea and mixes it with its own volatile stomach acid. It remains in its stomach until its ready to transfer it into its throat and spit at whatever is in its way!"

"So it shoots... salt?"

"Pressurized salt acid! Had it hit you your face would have been melted off! And the worst part? You would still be alive, writhing and screaming in horrible agony!"

"Oh. Well, just as well that didn't happen then." She joked off only to accidentally make Farran more ticked off.

"It's not a laughing matter!" He snarled effectively keeping Heathers mouth shut. "Besides you have yet to answer my question. What were you doing so close to it to begin with?"

"Well if you must know, I was trying to train it." Heather retorted quickly getting over the shock of Farrans attitude. The hunter looked back questioningly at her and demanded to know why. Deciding it was better not to tell him the actual truth she quickly fabricated a believable lie. "Come on Farran, think about it! It's a dragon that I've never seen before! And if I've never seen it before then neither have any of the top hunters! Not even Ryker! Can you honestly say that you wouldn't enjoy bringing him a dragon he's never seen before? Well?"

Farrans face softened for a moment. "I suppose I can see the reason behind your actions." However it didn't take long for it to toughen up again. "But even so that's no reason to go after it alone!"

"I wasn't alone, I had Windshear watching my back!"

"And if I was there I could have saved you the trouble of doing so in the first place! Did you at least notice that its skin looked odd?"

Heather did recall that the salt chucker's scales did seem 'greasy', though she thought that it had something to so with it just leaving the water.

"And if I did?"

"Then it's lucky you didn't touch it. That beast is covered in a painful venom."

"Is it lethal?"

"No but it does cause a vicious sting that lasts for hours and causes your hand to swell. Trust me as someone who speaks from experience, it's far from pleasant."

"Sounds like there's another story behind that."

"Oh there is. But maybe we should focus on our original mission first and then share stories afterwards."

"Uh, yes. Of course."

Heather quickly led Farran over to the dragon hunter tracks she had been studying earlier and let him know that the hunters had been chased into the trees that lay sixty feet away. She followed up by checking with the young hunter if he had found anything in the deserted ship. He replied mentioning that the inside was just as damaged as the outside and that the ships armoury had been stripped of nearly all the weapons. But other than that, nothing.

"We should follow them." Farran suggesting, referring to the tracks which led into the forest.

"I don't think that's a good idea." Heather quickly responded.

"What do you mean?"

"We came here to find out what happened to the ship, nothing more. We should head back."

The hunter blinked, unsure if he had heard correctly.

"You're... you're surely kidding! What about the crew? We can't just leave them here!"

"And what when we find them Farran? Huh? We have a single dragon to get us back to the fleet."

"So your thought is to just leave them?"

"We can inform Ryker and have him send a proper crew out to find them. Something that we don't have the time or resources to do right now. And trust me, if we're late the missing crew members will be the least of our concerns."

Farran said nothing at first. For a moment he found it hard to believe that they had only come out here to confirm if the ship they had been sent to find was actually missing and nothing else. It also didn't go unnoticed that his partner seemed to be acting in a cold and harsh manner, more than usual at least. He remembered well the rumours of what happened to those ignorant and stupid enough to ignore orders from Ryker or gods forbid, Viggo himself. Perhaps that had something to do with this sudden attitude? A fear that returning late would result in punishment? Clearly a change of tactics would be needed in order to change her mind.

"Look, all I'm saying is that we should at least make sure there are survivors to rescue. What if we DO end up going back and telling Ryker about the supply ship and the possibility of survivors? What if he DOES send another ship out to find them only to find nothing? Who's the first person he's going to blame for wasting his time on something that could be sorted out right now?"

That silenced her for a bit. The following silence hung in the air, neither of the two saying a word while the razorwhip seemed unsure and confused at their latest ongoing argument.

"I suppose that settles it." Farran spoke up, taking the lack of communication as a sign of Heather losing her verbal fighting spirit. He soon turned and begun to track the footprints into the forest.

"Fine. But if we return late, you're taking the blame!"

Farran simply raised his hand and formed a thumbs up gesture, but otherwise did and said nothing else on the matter. As he continued walking he was unable to hear Heather just for a few seconds whisper to Windshear, and luckily so.

"Don't worry girl. I'm sure Hiccup and the others will have no problem holding down the fort while we're gone."

For the passing hour the three followed the tracks into the forest, neither humans saying a word nor did their dragon roar and snarl. It was a silent trip. The trek into the thick camopy felt long and tiresome, at least to Heather as the tracks they followed eventually faded from sight. It didn't take much longer before she could tell that this so called rescue mission had become a lost cause. Farran too soon realised this but did not dare admit it. He even tried doubling back, almost certain that they had missed something vital. But alas they had not. It was clear to the spy that Farran was grasping at straws for a reason to not give up as he tried to throw whatever excuse he could think of to stay. It was almost enough for Heather to suggest that they use Windshear to track the prints. Almost. She had her own priorities to deal with and she would not ignore them for a group of possibly dead hunters.

"Farran?" She spoke up gently. She had to say something. Farran slowly came to a halt. He didn't even bother to turn around.

"You're done, aren't you?" He asked sadly, knowing already where this conversation would lead. "Typical. An hour in and we already turn tail."

"I don't like it anymore than you do Farran but we need to get back to the fleet BEFORE the attack on the edge. They need us both."

"Oh they'll most certainly need you." Farran agreed. "I doubt that they would even notice me missing."

"Don't even start with that, yes they will! And do you know what they'll do to you when they find out that you refuse to follow orders?"

Farran muttered something under his breath.

"What was that?" Heather asked.

"It doesn't matter. Clearly I'm not going to win this conversation no matter what I say am I?"

"I'm afraid not."

Farran didn't like it. Not one bit. But he couldn't say that Heather was wrong either. They were only meant to find out what had happened to the ship, nothing more. And besides if they did find survivors, the ship was in no condition to sail. The dragon Windshear would probably have enough trouble carrying three hunters on its back so if they came across say ten survivors, they would have to leave them anyway. Perhaps they would be better sending another ship and he was being foolish.

"I'm sorry Farran. But right now you can't waste your time attempting to save lives when that can be done by a more prepared crew."

Farran lowered his head. "Why not? People wasted their lives so that I could have time to begin with..." It was easy to miss the hint of melancholy in his voice. but harder not to notice the limper posture.
"What? What does that mean?"

"... Nothing. Let's just go."

Heather couldn't get anything else from Farran before he headed back to the beach. It didn't take long before they were back in the air once again, leaving the island as quickly as they had arrived. It was rather unfortunate that the group had no idea how close they had come to actually finding the crew had they only taken a couple of steps further and met the same fate they had done...

././././././././././././././././././.

I'll be honest, I had more planned for this chapter but none of it seemed to drive towards the plot of the story when I went over it in my head, thus the reason why this chapter is short and ends somewhat abruptly so I apologise and I will be making up for that in the next chapter. Also I've noticed that a lot of people have been asking again and again for more on Farrans backstory and history, which I am glad to hear. However I can't just reveal everything in one chapter. That wouldn't be good storytelling, at least to me. After a few more chapters however I will add a little more backstory in so don't you worry ;) But for now, I hope you enjoyed this chapter enough to remain entertained, and as you may be able to tell by the ending we may not be quite done with the mysterious island just yet. Just because I'm done with it now doesn't mean I can't come up with something for it later...