Chapter 9

New Wing

Catapult Tower, Midnight

If anyone asked her, Snaketail would say that coming to Berk was the greatest stroke of luck she'd ever had. All her life, she'd felt trapped in that tiny fishing village without any excitement except the occasional sea monster attack. Whenever Vikings came to trade, she would be fixated on the great, shiny weapons they always brought with them. She could only imagine how awesome it'd be to get in a fight, or even a war. The only things she'd fought were stubborn fish on the end of her line.

Then, however, her parents' boat had been sunk by hungry monsters. Snaketail remembered thinking that this was the end of her short, boring life, and that had made her angry. Her passive parents and feeble village elders always lamented at how easy it was to set her off, at how ungrateful she was for an easy life. But she never listened. She might've been born from fishmongers, but in her heart, she was a Viking.

In the end, her temper ended up being her savior, manifesting as a refusal to die before doing something meaningful with herself. After days drifting on the open water, it had seemed a feeble hope. Yet here she was, on Berk – part of a Viking tribe, training with actual weapons, bonding with her new friends over who could throw a sword the farthest. Had she actually died at sea? Was this Valhalla?

Speaking of bonding, that was what Gobber – the Viking with only one arm and one leg, HOLY CRAP – had taken the trainees out to do. In the dead of night, Snaketail found herself sitting with her teacher and all her friends around a hearty fire at the top of a catapult tower. With the ocean on one side and the village on the other, roasting chickens and listening to Gobber's old monster-killing tales, Snaketail felt a sudden thrill and the urge to break out grinning. This was as exciting as monster training!

Tales of glory! Her mind was going around in spastic circles. Bonding with fellow warriors after a great battle! And more to look forward to tomorrow! AAH, SO COOL!

"There I was, me hand in the jaws of a Tigrex!" Gobber embellished, telling his latest story. "With one twist, he tore it off an' swallowed it whole! I saw the look on his face – I was delicious!"

There was a collective ooooh amongst the trainees. Snaketail drummed her feet on the floor, filled with such glee from Gobber's graphic tale that there was no way she could stay still.

"But that ain't the end of it," Gobber went on dramatically. "He musta passed the word, 'cause it wasn't a month before another one of 'em took me leg."

He showed off his stump, which got another round of oooohs. Snotlout, the twins, and Fishlegs were fascinated, their faces showing off the same awe that Snaketail felt – an amazement that sat in her core, churning up a chaotic hurricane of barely contained giddiness. Astrid was silent, but she leaned forward with a strange intensity, made more dramatic by the firelight reflected in her eyes. Hiccup, too, was there, though he merely sat on the edge of the circle, unresponsive.

"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside of a monster?" Fishlegs inquired. The pudgy, nervous boy was clutching two plump turkey legs in his fists, although they went ignored for the moment. "Like, if your mind was still in control of it, you could've killed the monster from the inside by… crushing its heart, or something!"

Only stupefied silence followed Fishlegs' enthusiastic statement, and Snaketail couldn't help but reflect on how… odd he could be. She appreciated how he'd mentored her briefly in Sword and Shield combat, but it was clear that his heart wasn't in it. He preferred reading and rattling off random facts, which Snaketail hadn't much patience for.

"I swear, I'm so angry right now!" Snotlout seethed, glaring at his chicken as though it was responsible for all his woes. More likely, Snaketail thought, he was just humiliated at his poor performance in the ring today. She almost laughed just from remembering it. That botched Hammer throw had been hilarious. And the way the monster sounded like it was laughing? Priceless.

Leaning back in his seat, Snotlout then declared, "I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot! I'll chop up the legs of every monster I fight… with my FACE."

Ruff and Tuff snickered darkly at that piece of imagery, which Snaketail had to admit sounded kind of awesome. Fishlegs fidgeted and scooted away an inch, while Astrid sent the Jorgenson boy a disparaging look.

Astrid. Right now, the idea of the Hofferson girl threatened to send Snaketail's blood pressure through the roof. She wouldn't be sparring with her anytime soon. So what if she was a total badass and the most determined warrior Snaketail had had the pleasure of dueling? Hiccup was anything but useless and weak, as Astrid claimed. He was awesome. He could smelt formless metal into pointy killing things! Sure, he couldn't take anyone in a physical fight, but his tongue was as sharp as any weapon, and Snaketail liked how he sassed people. Screw anyone who said he was worthless!

Oblivious to Snaketail's bubbling temper, Gobber stood up and stretched out his arms in an enormous yawn. Well, his one arm and one chicken-on-a-stick.

"Alrigh', I'm off ta bed," he announced. "Ye should be too! Tomorrow we git ta the big boys! Slowly but surely workin' oor way up ta the most fearsome monster of all."

Snaketail's anger evaporated like magic, replaced by her mounting excitement. "But only one of us gets to kill it, right?!" she blurted, grinning so hard her teeth hurt.

"It's gonna be me!" Tuffnut bragged. "It's my destiny, see?"

The male Thorston pulled up his sleeve to reveal something out of Snaketail's sight. Fishlegs did see, though, and reacted with a shocked gasp. "Your mom let you get a tattoo?"

"It's not a tattoo, it's a birthmark!" Tuff insisted, displaying a massive grin.

"Okay, I've been stuck with you since birth, and that's never been there before," Ruff growled.

"Yes it has! You've just never seen me from this side until now!" her brother answered.

Snaketail couldn't help but burst out laughing at the banter, filled to bursting with joyous energy with the promise of a climactic battle soon to come. She looked around at her comrades-in-arms and, quickly sobering, realized that Hiccup was missing. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. That was weird, especially since she'd just been thinking about him. He'd been so quiet ever since arriving that he must have slipped away while her thoughts were elsewhere.

Curiosity getting the better of her, Snaketail stood up to peer down the spiraling walkway that led to the bottom of the tower. She thought she heard the frantic sound of bootsteps rushing down the path, but it was gone in a second, so she dismissed it as a figment of her imagination.

He's been acting weird lately, Snaketail reflected, her smile fading as she stared into the darkness.

But that'd come later. She had another training session to rest up for, and gods knew if she could get enough sleep with that on her mind.

Gobber's Smithy

"A downed dragon… is a dead dragon."

There was simply no way Hiccup could stay any longer after hearing those words. They echoed in his head, spurring him on with their tone of grim satisfaction. A growing sense of horror drove his every hurried step forward. What a fool he'd been – bewitched by the secluded paradise that was the grotto, he'd believed the Gore Magala to be safe, and most importantly, out of reach of the Vikings of Berk.

Oh, how wrong he was. The Gore Magala was in grave danger, and had been ever since he'd cut it free. Eventually, it would be found, and, without the ability to fly away…

Hiccup dared not finish the thought. The implication chilled him enough to shiver, as if to shake it away. It drove him to such distraction that, turning a corner, he almost ran into a pair of Vikings walking home from the Meade Hall, gossiping about what sounded like a forest fire. They jumped back to let him past, shouting after him in annoyance.

It was to the forge Hiccup ran so desperately. A plan was already forming in his head, a wild fantasy that he was sure had never been attempted before. He had no-one to turn to for advice, no precedent to work from. He had nothing but a natural ingenuity and the skills he'd honed working under Gobber.

When Hiccup reached the forge, he made a beeline for the back room and pulled out his notes, flipping to the sketch of the Gore Magala, the one he had edited to include the broken wing. He studied that wing closely, wracking his brain for a solution. He tried to reimagine the Gore Magala taking flight, how the wing bent and flexed in motion… even the approximate location of the break itself.

At last, Hiccup pushed himself away from the workbench, his eyes on the parchment-covered wall. Past designs for monster-killing machinery stared back at him, yet he didn't see them. Rather, in his mind's eye, he pictured his next project. It was all made clear to him: what materials it needed, how it would function. Whether or not it worked in the long-term wasn't a concern – Hiccup only needed to know it could work. Then, he could improve upon it until perfection.

He grabbed a pile of parchment and a stick of charcoal. With only the light of a single candle to stave off the midnight darkness, Hiccup got to work.

Hidden Grotto, Dawn

Morning found Hiccup jumping from his bed as though he'd never fallen asleep. In a single leap, he crossed his room and snatched the bundle sitting on his table. He flew down the stairs and yanked the door open, causing enough commotion by accident to startle Batwings awake. Hiccup heard the telltale thump and subsequent cursing of the Siren falling from the rafters just as he slammed the door behind him. He would apologize later, but right now he had to hurry – he wanted to get this task done before training.

There was hardly anyone up and about at this hour, so it was easy for Hiccup to run across the village to the food stores, snatching an apple for himself from a wheelbarrow in passing. Slipping into the building, he grabbed a spare basket and filled it with fish from yesterday's fishing trip. With preparations complete, Hiccup slung the basket over his shoulder and raced for the woods.

Once he was deep in the forest, Hiccup allowed himself to slow down and gaze down at his bundle with an appreciative eye. It had taken him all night, but in his arms was perhaps his greatest masterpiece yet, the culmination of all his experiences in the forge. Inside was a device designed not to kill or capture a monster, but to help it. A thrill buzzed down his spine. He couldn't wait to test it out.

The Gore Magala was sleeping on the other side of the lake when Hiccup arrived. He waded through patchy clouds of black fog, noticing that it wasn't as thick as last time. When he reached Sightless, he relieved his straining back by letting his load drop to the ground, a noise that woke the monster. It approached, sniffing the basket with intrigue.

"Hey, Sightless," Hiccup greeted the monster by nickname for the first time, keeping his tone light and friendly. "I brought breakfast – hope you're hungry!"

He unfastened the latch and kicked the basket over, allowing its slimy cargo to come pouring out, spilling over each other with a distinct fishy stench. Sightless perked up at the smell and crawled closer to investigate, nudging a few fish with his snout.

"Alright, that's disgusting," Hiccup remarked. Carefully, he began to make his way toward the Gore Magala's flank. "So, we've got some salmon… some nice Icelandic cod… and a whole smoked eel!"

Just as he said it, Sightless jostled some fish that slid to the bottom of the heap, revealing a conspicuous yellow-and-black form. Sightless froze, a reaction that Hiccup noticed right away. Confused, he paused to watch the monster back away with a degree of caution that evoked a spooked animal. What was going on? Did the sight of the eel…

No, not the sight, Hiccup remembered and corrected himself. Probably the smell. If Sightless can pick an eel out of a pile of different fish, then that's incredible… something to add to the Book of Monsters, I hope.

When he, confused, extracted the eel and held it out at arm's length, Sightless went from "spooked" to full-blown panic mode. He flared out his wingarms and screeched like a demon, recoiling as though the eel's scent was deadly poison. A dark whirlpool of black mist swirled about his feet, churned into a frenzy by his panicked wingbeats.

"No no no, it's okay, it's okay!" Hiccup yelped, throwing the eel into the lake as if it had just bit him. Sightless began to settle down, and Hiccup made sure to wipe his hand on his jacket before holding it out to reassure him. It took several seconds for the Gore Magala to become calm again, going back to nosing the fish.

"Yeah, I really don't like eel much, either," Hiccup chuckled. Reassured that everything was alright, he began to creep over to Sightless' exposed wingarm, whose useless wing was spread messily over the grass. Thin wisps of mist surrounded it, but they were already fading before Hiccup's very eyes. Now that approach was safe, he knelt and unwrapped his package.

Fully unveiled at last, Hiccup's latest contraption was simple enough, but the fact it was designed for the purpose of helping a monster made it revolutionary. It consisted of a thick band of leather sheathed in a thin layer of metal to keep it sturdy, with only the ends exposed. A buckle on one end allowed it to be tied on easily. Its most unique feature, though, was the hinge built into the side opposite the buckle. Attached to the hinge was a narrow band of metal designed to wrap around and clamp down on something, and Hiccup had sized it specifically to fit Sightless' broken phalanx. It would extend down the edge of his wing to about a quarter of its length, keeping the fracture in a fixed position as though it were a splint. And thanks to the hinge, Sightless would still be able to move the wing joint without trouble.

… That was the theory, anyway. Hiccup still had to get it attached.

"That's it, just stick with the good stuff," he murmured as he slid closer to the feasting monster. "Don't mind me… I'll be back here… minding my own business…"

It took a little bit of trial and error to get the splint on Sightless' wingarm, especially since he kept shifting it as he ate. Hiccup remained patient until Sightless, trying to reach the last fish in the basket, leaned forward and accidentally knocked Hiccup on his rump. Grumbling to himself, Hiccup grabbed hold with one arm and finished the harness with the other. He made sure to line the metal band up with the wing's phalanx, and to his incredible relief, the fit was snug.

"There we go," he muttered, taking a step back to admire his handiwork. "It's not too bad, it works…"

He didn't see the way Sightless' wing was unfurling until it was far too late.

"CHAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

With a scream, the Gore Magala vaulted into the air with a push of his arms, slamming into Hiccup in the process. Dizzy from the impact, Hiccup latched on instinctively – only to start yelling in fear when he realized that he was on Sightless' wingarm, being pumped up and down, rising off the ground!

"Oh no! Oh gods!" Hiccup cried, just as Sightless began to lose altitude. The Gore Magala screamed again as they started to plummet, his broken wing failing to provide the proper lift. Hiccup saw it flapping like a pair of trousers hung up to dry, and instantly checked the splint.

The hinge – it was in a shut position, holding the wing closed.

Hiccup prayed to the gods that he wouldn't fall off or be sick. Tightening his grip with his legs, he reached out with one hand toward the hinge, grasped it… and pulled it open.

Whoooooooosh!

Sightless went soaring upwards, past the grotto's wall and over the tops of the trees. Cold wind slapped Hiccup's face, and he closed his eyes by reflex. However, when he dared to open them again, he saw an incredible sight: the Berk forest far below, Sightless' wing in a perfect soaring position, and nothing except blue sky all around them!

"Oh my… it's working!" Hiccup whooped, his heart lifting as surely as Sightless just had.

Purely on impulse, he pulled the hinge back, and Sightless executed a hard left turn that sent them diving back into the grotto and skimming just over the lake. Hiccup felt an incredible tingle in his gut as they dove, and he kept his eyes wide despite the wind and spray. Adrenalin was flooding his veins and his bones buzzed with an electrical sensation. Flying was the most exhilarating feeling in the world!

"Yes! Yes, I did it!" he cheered, unable to contain himself.

At that moment, Sightless swung his head around, as though noticing Hiccup clinging to his wingarm for the first time. With a dismissive growl, he pulled off a violent turn that caused Hiccup to slip right off.

Cold was the first thing Hiccup felt when he hit the water. A wall of bubbles blinded him, and an all-encompassing blanket of suffocating wetness enveloped him in a chill that penetrated down to his bones. With a desperate flex of his arms, Hiccup breached the surface with a gasp, relief flooding him as his aching lungs filled with air. He was just in time to see a tower of white spray bloom into the sky, and a flapping pair of black wings cut through as the it fell back into the lake.

But not even an impromptu morning swim could douse Hiccup's mood. It bubbled up in an uncontrollable swell, bringing an ecstatic grin to his face, and he brought his arms above water for a victorious cheer.

Berk Woods

"…and these are Blue Mushrooms. They're pretty rare on Berk, I've never actually seen a clump this large! They're harmless when eaten, kind of bland, but when mixed with different plants have extraordinary medical applications, such as…"

Batwings hadn't felt this content in a long time. He watched as Fishlegs crouched to examine the glistening fungi growing in the shadow of a rotten log, rambling on about their properties. They had come to the forest this morning in search of wild dragons, but hadn't found any sign yet, thanks to Fishlegs insisting on describing every species of plant they came across.

Frankly, Batwings wasn't used to having a friend, much less one that talked his ear off with such passion. Fishlegs just liked knowing things, and if the Siren had to guess, no-one else on Berk was willing to listen to his trivia. He knew what it felt like to be alone on an island full of people. None of the Peaceable tribe had been comfortable enough with him to just hang out, and his preference for sticking around humans had alienated him from his Siren peers, as well. Batwings could bear Fishlegs' endless chatter if it meant having a companion.

A faint scent wafted through the forest, pulling Batwings away from his reverie. He frowned at the acrid smell, so subtle that he could almost swear he was imagining things. Smoke? he wondered. But why –

Crack!

A noise from deeper in the forest startled Batwings, his head whipping around to face the direction it had come from. Fishlegs was too deep into his rambling to realize something had happened, until he realized seconds later that he no longer had his audience's attention.

"W-What's wrong?" the Ingerman boy asked, his voice tremulous.

"I heard something," Batwings replied, whose dragon senses were sharper by nature than those of a person.

Crack! There it was again, louder this time, and accompanied by a rustling noise that got constantly louder. In seconds, the rustling and snapping sounds became violent crashes that thundered closer, and closer, and closer… until the trees nearby started to shake.

Batwings' heart leapt into his mouth. "FISHLEGS GET OU–"

A terrible squawk split the forest as a huge blur smashed through the bushes, knocking Batwings aside. He landed on his belly, pain throbbing through his body, and he looked up through a veil of ferns to see the creature slam into a thick tree. It dropped to the ground as though shot dead, lying amidst the tree's roots in a heap of scales and limbs.

Clutching his head, Batwings staggered to his feet, and a shuffling from nearby indicated that Fishlegs was recovering as well. He never gave the Ingerman boy a glance, though, too intent on investigating the seemingly suicidal creature that had almost trampled them.

In a sudden surge of motion, the Deadly Nadder leapt to its feet and whirled around with an unnatural, guttural cry. A single glance told Batwings that something was terribly wrong – its entire body had taken on a dark purple hue, while bloodshot red eyes rolled in their sockets and black drool slobbered from its jaws. It took two stumbling steps forward, fire gathering in its throat… and then its eyelids drooped, and its body pitched forward to hit the dirt. Batwings knew in his gut that it was dead.

"Th-That's a…" Fishlegs was having trouble speaking. "Th-That's a… N-N-Nadder…? B-But –"

"Back to the village," Batwings barked. "You'd better get ready for monster training anyways. I'll investigate what I can and let Gobber know right away. Okay?"

He got no reply, only senseless blubbering from the still-stupefied Fishlegs. He repeated his question, harsher this time, and this time got a hasty nod and salute.

The Siren knelt before the fallen Nadder, already deaf to the sound of Fishlegs bumbling through foliage. His gaze searched the dragon's body, and every sign told him the same thing – that no, it wasn't injury or illness that had caused this. The Nadder's scales started to blur, and Batwings found himself blinking back tears.

Technically, he'd lied to Fishlegs. He had no intention of going to Gobber about this until he was sure of what had driven this Nadder to insanity. It reminded him of a Monstrous Nightmare he'd once seen come down with eel pox, although far more severe. He'd certainly never heard of a case involving such alarming physical symptoms.

Have I heard someone talk about eel pox recently? Batwings thought, a faint sensation of déjà vu swimming through him. It sounded absurd, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't a complete coincidence.

Batwings turned away from the Nadder's body to peer into the depths of the forest. The scent of smoke was back, tickling his nose unpleasantly. He could tell that something wasn't quite right on Berk, and if it was affecting wild dragons, it would soon affect the village as well. Batwings wouldn't be satisfied until he found out what it was.

This might be the first time I've really tried to look deeper into Snaketail's character. For backstory, I never gave her anything besides "runaway from fishing village" because it wasn't relevant to the immediate story. She's angry and competitive and violent at the worst of times, and cheerful and mischievous at other times. Why, though? What motivates her?

I hope I've cleared some things up about Snaketail's temperament and motivations in this chapter, readers.

Working out how Sightless' splint functioned was pretty fun. There's more to it than Toothless' prosthetic due to the complexity of a wingarm versus a tail fin. And speaking of dragons, Batwings is more suspicious than ever…

How have I been doing so far, readers? Are the OCs fitting into the story well? Is there anything you think I could be doing better! I'm always eager to hear your feedback!