4. Talking

"What?"

"Johann."

"Yes, I heard you the first time. What about him?" Hiccup asked not understanding anything she wanted him to piece together. She stared at him, eyes full of excitement, just like when they discovered a new dragon or destroyed another hunter ship. With that look in her eyes he knew she pieced everything together.

"Johann was working with the dragon hunters before he died, he knew that Berk's heir disappeared, he knew who the heir was and how he looked like. Johann knew you and he had seen you without your helmet a lot of times, and if he told Krogan…" the excitement in her eyes was replaced with horror, the same horror that filled Hiccup's body. "and if Krogan told Drago then he's targeting Berk to-"

"To destroy it or to make us stop, or both," he finished her thought fear gripping his heart. Yes, he did leave Berk and his father, but he still loved him as crazy as that was, and he didn't want the tribe to be wiped out, he didn't want them to die, he didn't want Gobber or Astrid to die. He gripped his head, panic building up inside him, he had enough of death, after the Red Death, after countless times of him and Storm almost dying. And how did Berk trying to capture but not kill dragons fit into this?

He arms wrapped around him and a voice told him to breathe, he listened, after what felt like hours he unclenched his eyes and lifted his head only to be met by darkness. Before he could start panicking again he heard Toothless purring behind him, and the wings that had enclosed them lifted. He took another deep breath and started petting Toothless as the dragon put his head into Hiccup's lap.

Storm had released him from her arms and was now looking at him with concern. She gave him a sad smile and made him look at her by grabbing his chin and turning it towards her, dropping her hand as Shadow nudged her asking to be petted also wanting to know if everything was okay. Storm still had that sad smile on her face as she sighed.

"Get some sleep Chief, this is taking more from you than we thought and take off your prosthetic we can't let it get infected, I'll wake you later to eat." She stood up and went to their bags at the edge of their camp, took out a jar filled with salve which she handed to Hiccup after coming back. He took the jar without a word, because he knew she was right, he needed sleep. While he took care of his prosthetic and stump, she went back to their bags and found the notebook that was filled with maps and routes that the dragon hunters frequented, deciding to study them while her Chief slept.

She was so engrossed in the notebook that she didn't notice Hiccup falling asleep wrapped up in Toothless' wings. She found nothing new in her studying, so she put the notebook away and thought about something else she could do. After a few minutes she decided to go back to the village even though it was about mid-day no one would see her with her changewing skin and more people meant more talk, which meant more information.

She opted to leave her helmet behind but didn't remove any of her armor. Before leaving she scratched and kissed Shadow on his snout with a firm 'Stay' and she made her way to the village. The path was easy to remember so she had no problem getting back to the edge of the woods that bordered the village, having cloaked herself with the skin half way through walking she didn't need to be as stealthy as before. Still, she sneaked closer to the village's plaza, as there was a group of what seemed to be young adults there, and other than them only lone Vikings were walking around, and lone Vikings were never a good information source unless threatened.

She was hiding between two houses when she finally could make out what the group was talking about, well yelling about would fit better. The group had five people, two women and three men, they acted like friends, but one of the girls was saying she'll axe 'Snot's' head off. 'So these were the people who helped Hiccup defeat the Red Death,' she thought. The one getting threatened was Snotlout, while the one doing the threatening was Astrid, the twins who were cheering it on were Ruffnut and Tuffnut, and Fishlegs was the one who was trying to defuse the whole situation. She only knew them from Hiccup's stories about them, but they haven't changed a lot from what it seemed.

"For the last time Snotlout this is not a joke!" Yelled Astrid bringing her axe to his chin, Snotlout already had his hand up in a surrendering manner, but that didn't do anything to calm he anger. "This is not a joke! You can't slack off and bring nothing to the meeting next week!"

"Chill out Astrid, one missed watch isn't going to change anything, a dragon comes to Berk once every month or so, and one escaped a week and a half ago, we're not expecting one for at least two weeks."

"But what if it did Snotlout, what if one decided to come last night? We wouldn't know that because you didn't bother to watch!" Astrid was even closer to him now, digging the axe edge into his throat.

'Last night?' Storm thought. Last night she and Hiccup reached the island and if someone was keeping watch, they would've been discovered as they landed. Dark dragon scales are good for the night sky, not for the light sand. She silently sent a 'thank you' to Snotlout for being dumb enough not to keep watch. If that exchange was anything to go by, they really haven't changed a bit, but what else is there to expect? Being stuck on one island in the middle of nowhere wasn't the best place for character growth. Storm could understand Astrid's anger too, if Berk is facing danger and a dragon is somehow an answer to their problems she would be furious too if someone missed two dragons landing on the island. And a meeting? They needed to come back to the village daily to find out when and where it would be taking place, and from what she heard so far the meeting involved the dragons somehow.

The group didn't talk about more important things, but Storm did gather that they all had their respective surveying positions and they had this meeting every day to share information. Other than that Astrid put Snotlout on fish gutting duty for the week as punishment, which he complained about until they were out of earshot. Storm stayed for a while but nothing else caught her attention, only a few people crossed the plaza and none were talking about something important to her. By the sun's position she could tell that more than an hour had passed, so she made her way back to the camp. Hiccup was safe with two dragons who would rather die than let anything happen to him, but he needed to eat and she needed to tell him what she heard.