Journey: Part III

The dragon riders were a sorry sight indeed.

Setting off from Berk, they had been a majestic procession, if a bit hurried. Now, their numbers had been decimated by a single dragon, and they had been forced to land on a near-by island to recuperate and heal 2 major injuries. Luckily, the supplies were spread evenly per head, so most of them were still attached to the Zippleback. They had built a makeshift fort with the timber from the convenient forests; a rather sad affair of 5 huts arranged in a ring, with a small stable in the center. A separate hut was located outside the ring; this served as a sick bay. So far, it had two occupants.

Fishlegs had been hit by a tail-spine. It had sunk several inches into his leg, and almost all the way through. Meatlug had panicked when her master passed out, and she flapped frantically to and fro until she ran into a tree. She was knocked out, and with extraordinary luck, Fishlegs was thrown partially clear so that only her heavy tail was resting on his injured leg. The spine broke off and the flame was put out, and the tail acted like a compress, stemming the flow of blood so it slowed to a trickle. Even so, the Riders were extremely lucky to find him as quickly as they did—much longer of a wait, and Fishlegs would have been a goner, either via blood loss or by the poison they found in his blood stream, apparently injected by the tail spine. As it was, Fishlegs was in a coma, feverish to the point of delirium. Ruffnut seemed surprisingly concerned, but it was passed over. No one wanted to face her angry stare whenever asked if she was going to leave, even to eat. Snotlout took to bringing her meals, shying away from flirting at her obvious distress. Hiccup was confident he would recover, but Ruff obviously didn't share his optimism.

Hiccup had, in the end, grabbed Astrid about 100 feet off the ground. Considering they had been flying above the cloud cover, this was quite a close margin. She had escaped with only a couple of scratches, yet her face still showed the shock of the fall. She confined herself to Hiccup's tent, only taking short breaks to visit the sick bay to check on Stormfly. Muffled sobs could sometimes be heard, momentarily accompanied by Hiccup's soft voice, comforting her, leading her back to the tent to rest. ] Stormfly's wing had been broken at 2 joints, and some of the skin was torn. It would take weeks for the skin to grow back, and a month at least for the bone to heal. A splint held it together, but the usually lively dragon could barely move without the wing flapping and pain to come shooting back.

Since these injuries were all caused by a single culprit, it was thoroughly irritating that the said culprit could be found on most days circling lively overhead, eyes blazing, usually accompanied by an equally irritating rider.

Tuffnut had named the dragon Death Ride. It seemed apt, and no one was really in the mood to argue. He was, after all, the one who had trained it, and now it seemed more like a spiny pussycat than anything. None had seen what had happened between dragon and human except Ruffnut, and she hadn't said a word since Fishlegs was found. When asked, Tuff would just say 'we looked at each other, and saw ourselves.' and smile a sad smile. It was probably meant as insightful, but most just found it annoying, because 1) it didn't answer the question, 2) it was kind of copying Hiccup when he first found Toothless, and 3) there was about as much the same between Tuffnut and Death Ride as a chicken to a Hotburple.

With so much going on, and so many injured, Hiccup had to make the first decision of his stillborn chiefing career. He decided to cancel normal camp duties, and just let the Riders rest. It would have been a wise decision—except for one thing. He forgot that camp included sentry duty: no one was on lookout for danger through the night. If he was older, even by a year or so, he would never have overlooked this detail. But, since Stoick teaching career was, *ahem*, cut short, he wasn't able to tell his son this important detail about camping.

Honestly, Hiccup was pretty preoccupied. But come on: just had a dragon-fight, landing on an unfamiliar island, middle of nowhere—doesn't that just scream danger?

A tired mind leads to mistakes. And, as Hiccup was about to find out, one's tired first decision can easily turn into one's last.

All one has to do is wait for nightfall…