Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; if you're on this site, you know the drill. Also, thanks are owed to athingofvikings, who gave me a much-appreciated sounding-board for a few aspects of my planned world-building for this particular crossover; hope you like it.
Feedback: Appreciated as always.
The Dragon of Wanheda
Standing in the middle of the training field, Clarke was genuinely looking forward to this new training session. Even when she'd become closer to Lexa during her peoples' brief alliance with the Grounders, she'd never been entirely sure how serious the other warriors there were taking her request to learn more about hand-to-hand combat. She hadn't dared to bring it up to any of them in case it weakened her position, but she'd wondered if the fact that she had already managed to take out several of the Coalitions' warriors had caused them to overestimate her existing abilities. By contrast, since they'd resumed her training sessions after their temporary excursion to Arrow Station, Astrid and Ruffnut had shown no sign that they had any existing expectations of what she was capable of. With no preconceived ideas about how she could hold her own already, the two young women had given her more detailed instructions during their lessons than any of her lessons back among the Grounders, which had the extra advantage of giving Clarke herself a better sense of what she'd been capable of even before she came down to the ground.
She would have still preferred to spend more time training with Griffin, but she appreciated the importance of learning how to fight on her own, and it wasn't as though the dragon was far away. Griffin was currently sitting on the edge of the training field with Stormfly, the two dragons watching their humans spar with what Clarke was tempted to consider idle curiosity; Tuffnut was apparently off feeding Barf and Belch.
"You're going to want to adjust your grip on that," Astrid said, indicating the sword in Clarke's hands as the other blonde raised her axe after their last brief clash of weapons. "Like I said at the start, you can't enter every fight expecting to be up against other sword-users; you need to be ready to adjust for anything you get thrown at you."
Nodding in acknowledgement, Clarke waited for a moment before Astrid charged at her, waiting until the other blonde came in close to try and get her sword under the blade of the axe. Clarke's goal was to try and force the axe out of Astrid's hand, but the plan backfired when Astrid shifted her grip on the axe so that Clarke's sword passed over the blade rather than getting caught under it, followed by Astrid hitting her in the side of the head with the axe.
"And that's what I'm talking about," Astrid said, nodding at her opponent as Clarke winced and clutched at the side of her head. "You have good ideas about how to use your weapons, but you need experience to properly put them into action."
"Well," Clarke smiled tentatively at the blonde Viking warrior, "I guess that's what I'm here for."
"And you also need to remember that you can't always rely on the dragon," Ruffnut put in from the side. "I mean, Barf's great, but I can't always depend on being able to blow stuff up in case Tuff's not there or Belch is having a bad day."
"That's possible?" Clarke looked curiously at the female twin. "For Belch to… have a bad day, I mean?"
"Wet dragon heads can't light their fire, and we've never been able to establish how long it would take a Zippleback to dry off after they're soaked," Astrid put in. "I mean, Toothless was able to fire plasma blasts just a couple of minutes after he'd been dunked underwater for a minute or two, but he had to do a bit of fast flying to dry off before he started shooting again, and we obviously can't be sure we'll all have that kind of opportunity in a dangerous situation even if the other dragons could fly that fast."
"One of the reasons new weapons are always a good thing," Ruffnut added with a satisfied grin as she indicated Hiccup's hut, smoke rising from the front door and roof to indicate that he was working on his own forge. "We didn't exactly focus on it back in the day, but that guy's been great in the forge even before he got the Night Fury; Gobber might be the best, but Hiccup should be able to come up with something at the moment."
"Exactly," Astrid smiled, twirling her axe as she looked at Clarke. "And on the topic of forging things, you're sure you're OK with a sword as your weapon?"
"Well, when I'm still learning how to fight like this, I'd prefer something… well, adaptable," Clarke shrugged. "I mean, the axe has great offensive opportunities, and the spear's useful for keeping your opponents back, but I just feel a bit more comfortable with swords for their variety."
"That fits," Astrid nodded (Clarke was just relieved that she hadn't unintentionally offended Astrid by implying that her favourite weapon was limited; the other girl clearly knew how to defend herself with an axe, but Clarke just wanted more experience with a more standard weapon).
"You really didn't do much fighting before?" Ruffnut looked at Clarke in surprise.
"My tribe… we were fairly isolated," Clarke shrugged, hoping this story would work; the more she spent time with these people, the clearer it was that they had even less knowledge of their true history than the Coalition. "We were basically… we pretty much lived on a ship before we found land, growing everything we needed on board and rarely settling down anywhere; we probably wouldn't have landed here if it wasn't for the fact that the ship was starting to fall apart on its own."
"You mean it was damaged before it ran aground like that?" Astrid asked, resting her axe over her shoulder as she and Ruffnut looked at the other blonde.
"Basically," Clarke nodded. "It wasn't actually… sinking before I was sent away, but certain parts… well, my father was one of the people in charge of keeping it all together, and he'd worked out that it couldn't keep going for much longer before it would… sink… no matter what he did."
"That was… the trouble you mentioned, right?" Astrid looked at her with a new sense of sympathy in her manner. "Your chief had him killed to keep the secret?"
"Yeah," Clarke nodded.
"Bit stupid, isn't it?" Ruffnut put in as she rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I mean, a guy tells you that there's a problem with your ship, which it's actually his damn job to keep in order, and your chief's response is to kill him to keep it quiet rather than let him try to fix it?"
"They… weren't sure if there was any way to fix it, so they were basically hoping that they could keep it quiet from the rest of my… tribe… until they worked something else out," Clarke explained, shaking her head.
"That was dumb."
"And when the twins think something's stupid, you know it's stupid," Astrid observed, looking at Clarke with new sympathy. "Your mother didn't… she was a healer, right?"
"Yeah," Clarke nodded. "It was… well, she did her best to help anyone who got caught in that mess, but everything just kept getting worse, until they all decided that there wasn't anything they could do to fix the ship apart from find somewhere safe to land."
"Which was-?" Astrid began, before a small orange-black dragon landed on the ground between the three girls, a leather satchel on its side.
"Huh?" Clarke looked at the small dragon, about the side of a cat and far smaller than any dragon she'd seen so far. "What's that?"
"Terrible Terror," Astrid said, walking over to open the satchel and take out a small piece of parchment.
"And they're… always that small?" Clarke asked, as the small dragon sat on the ground and licked its own eyeball. She vaguely recalled reading about dragons this size in the pamphlet, but the idea that any dragons had been created at this tiny size felt strange.
"Never encountered anything bigger, anyway," Ruffnut confirmed, before she looked curiously at Astrid. "Is it from-?"
"It is," Astrid cut the other girl off, reading over the parchment for a few moments before she looked back at Ruffnut and Clarke. "OK, I'll let Hiccup know about the message and then Snotlout and Fishlegs can join me on this one; you two are staying here, and I'll let Tuffnut know when I see him."
"What-?" Clarke began, only for Astrid to get on Stormfly's back and fly off towards the main houses, leaving Clarke to look at Ruffnut in confusion.
"We've… got a few long-standing problems we're dealing with around this area," Ruffnut explained, shifting her stance awkwardly as though she wasn't entirely sure how to explain things to Clarke. "Hiccup thought it'd be better if you didn't get dragged into anything too big while you're still learning or before you've made your choice about sticking around, so… well, Hiccup's got all that metal to work with right now, and Tuffnut and I were told to keep an eye on you while everyone else keeps up with other things."
"I… see," Clarke said, giving a tentative nod of understanding. "I take it these… problems are why you have guard-towers in the first place?"
"We're being cautious," Ruffnut confirmed, before she shot a warning glare at Clarke. "And tell Hiccup I'm taking things that seriously and I'll really get rough on you."
"Got a reputation to keep up, huh?" Clarke smiled thoughtfully at Ruffnut.
"That works," Ruffnut nodded, stepping back to give Clarke a grateful smile. "So how do you want to keep this up?"
Sword in her hands, Clarke tensed as she faced the two strange Viking twins as they prepared to attack her. While Hiccup had chosen to stay behind to work on the metal salvaged from Arrow Station, Astrid had soon gathered Snotlout and Fishlegs to deal with whatever mission she had received a message about. That left Clarke to resume her training with Ruffnut, and Tuffnut had soon joined his sister in the training session, albeit claiming that it was because he just didn't have anything else to do at the moment.
It had been an erratic training session, with Clarke alternating between facing one twin or the other, mixed in with the occasional match against both of them, but she liked to think she'd been making a good impression of herself. She'd tested herself on using a bow and arrow just to see how she handled those weapons, but had accepted the observation that arrows weren't really a practical weapon when she'd be on a dragon when fighting at long range, so had tested herself with a few other melee weapons. Maces and other blunt objects weren't her favourite as they felt like they were weighing her down too much, but she could appreciate the value of axes and spears for a forceful attack and keeping enemies at a distance, even if she'd settled on the sword as her main weapon. She'd spent the last few practise bouts getting a good feel for the weapon, and now she was circling the twins in the training area, the two blond Vikings ready with their spears as both sides waited for the right moment to attack-
As Tuffnut lunged forwards, Clarke raised her sword in time to deflect the spear, only to find herself nearly impaled in the side when Ruffnut charged forwards while she was distracted. Ducking to the side, Clarke grabbed the shaft of the spear and yanked the weapon towards her, ramming the hilt of her own sword into Ruffnut's chest. She held back so that the blow wouldn't actually hurt the Viking-esque young woman, but it made enough of an impression to knock Ruffnut backwards while Clarke regained her balance. A sound from the side prompted Clarke to glance over, but she relaxed when she realised that the sound was just the watching Griffin and Barf and Belch, Griffin apparently laughing at the Zippleback for her victory over its rider (she'd have to ask what the right term was for Barf and Belch; the dragon was apparently male, but should she think of the two-headed dragon as 'he', 'they' or 'it'?).
"Nice move," Ruffnut nodded at Clarke, drawing Clarke's attention back to the training ring, the young woman giving Clarke an approving smile even as she rubbed at her chest. "Could have done that harder, right?"
"Well… Yeah, I just… didn't want to hurt you that much," Clarke said tentatively, before her eyes narrowed as something else came to her. "And talking of hurting each other, were you actually trying to stab me?"
"Yep," Ruffnut affirmed.
"Seriously?"
"Hey, we can get that fights aren't gonna last long enough for you to get tired most of the time, but you're also not gonna learn to react properly in a fight if you don't know how you'll react in a fight," Ruffnut responded. "We've been doing this for months, and we know how far to push each other; you'd get scars if you're not careful, but I was never gonna actually impale you or anything."
"Yeah; Hiccup'd get really ticked off if we seriously hurt each other," Tuffnut agreed.
"That's… yeah, thanks," Clarke nodded. On one level, she was annoyed at how everyone on Earth seemed to take even training fights so seriously, but on the other hand she had to concede that Ruffnut made a good point that she'd only learn how she reacted in a fight if she was in real danger.
"Anytime," Tuffnut nodded in understanding, before he stepped back to look up at the sky for a moment before he turned back to his sister with a shrug. "Actually, we should get back to patrol; can't protect this place by staying put, right?"
"Right," Ruffnut nodded, before she looked over at Clarke. "Can you put the weapons away? We've got some… stuff to move around."
"Sure," Clarke nodded in return. "Just… give me some time, OK?"
"No need to hurry, Clarrie," Tuffnut nodded at her as the twins left the training ring. "You'll get the hang of it."
As the twins walked off, Clarke was surprised to find that she was actually glad to be given something so relatively low-key to deal with. When most of her time with the 100 had forced her to take responsibility for everything from finding their next meal to convincing them that they needed some kind of rules, it was refreshing to be somewhere where they didn't expect her to do anything big.
OK, so Mom and most of the Ark wanted me to 'be a kid' when they got down, but they just wanted to take over the situation and act like I hadn't done anything before they showed up; at least here they give me the small stuff because it needs doing rather than trying to humour me.
She appreciated that there was still a lot she wasn't being told about the situation here on the Edge, but so far she hadn't seen anything to suggest that she was dealing with another Mount Weather where they'd try to hurt her or use her to get to her friends for their own reasons…
As she put the last of the spears on the rack, she paused for a moment to give her new sword a couple of practice swings, before she heard a brief snort from the side.
"Sorry, Griffin," she grinned over at her dragon. "I guess you can get bored just like everyone else, right?"
Griffin just let out a softer snort at that, but there was a slight edge to his expression that left Clarke at least fairly sure that she had understood him correctly.
"C'mon," she said, looking over her dragon's rough scales with a thoughtful smile. "I think you could do with a bit of a rub-down, don't you?"
Griffin let out an approving rumble, while a quick search revealed a few buckets off to the side of the training ring. A quick search of the area revealed a basic well that allowed her to fill a couple of the buckets with water, leaving her to take some strips of cloth and start rubbing down Griffin's looser scales.
"So, are you settling in OK?" she said, looking curiously at the dragon. She wasn't sure if he could understand her or not, but the other dragons at least seemed to respond to their riders' words, so she would assume Griffin was the same, and the approving rumble he gave her seemed to be confirmation.
"Yeah, I'm liking it here too," she grinned, rubbing around his wings. "I mean, I realise that there are a few things they're not telling us, but these guys seem like a good group, and… well, I assume the dragons are all right?"
Griffin let out an approving rumble as he wrapped his tail around her for a moment, nudging his head against her before he stepped back and unwound his tail.
"I'll take that as yes," Clarke smiled at him, continuing to rub down around the tail. "You don't have a… flock or something?"
Griffin's expression became notably subdued at that question, as his head bowed in a manner that made Clarke feel suddenly uncomfortable.
"You don't have a family?" Clarke asked, as Griffin let out a low affirmative rumble. "What did you go through before we met?"
Griffin didn't respond to her question, but the way he nudged his head against her made her feel that he was affirming his loyalty to her over whatever he'd lost with his original 'family'.
"Thanks," she said, reaching over to hug Griffin around the neck.
"And who might you be, lassie?"
Turning around at the sound of the voice in the still-unfamiliar language, Clarke raised her sword defensively at the sight of the man standing before her. Unlike the other Riders, this was clearly a full-grown man, with the distinctive horned helmet of the popular Viking image, but he had a significant pot-belly and was wearing a fur tunic over a coal-stained yellow top and brown striped trousers. Aside from his long moustache, the most significant thing about the man's appearance was his right peg leg and the large hook where his left hand had once been, although Clarke also noticed a large metal tooth in his mouth. Alongside her, Griffin let out a cautionary growl, but stayed close to her in a manner that put her in mind of films she'd seen about dogs growling at potentially dangerous people.
"Uh… who are you?" she asked, raising her sword slightly in her hand as she tried to evaluate if this man should be considered a threat or not. She didn't want to attack someone by accident after everything had gone wrong with the Grounders, but even with Griffin as back-up, she didn't want to let her guard too far down…
"Gobber," the man said, folding his arms in a surprisingly efficient manner as he looked at her. "Ye know… traders' tongue? Who are ye?"
"Oh, you're Gobber?" Clarke smiled in relief, letting herself relax more; she appreciated that the man could be lying, but there was no obvious reason for him to give her a false name when not many people could have known that Gobber was expected here anyway. "I'm Clarke; I… Hiccup saved me from some people who were threatening Griffin, and invited me back."
"Ah, I see," the large man nodded in understanding as his gaze shifted to the Windstriker behind her. "And I suppose this fellow would be Griffin?"
"I found him with an injured wing, stayed to help him heal, and after Hiccup helped us… well, here we are," Clarke smiled tentatively at the older man as Griffin curled his neck around her so that his head was directly in front of her, allowing her to scratch an area just behind his chin-horn that Clarke had learned comforted the dragon without knocking him out. "He and the others let me stay here and I'm helping out while learning a bit more about Griffin- but they're not all gone, Hiccup's doing some work and the twins are around here somewhere-"
"Easy, lass, I believe you," Gobber chuckled slightly as he looked at her. "Ye'd hardly be sittin' around like this if you'd just taken the Edge by force, especially not wi' that fine beast beside ye."
"Uh… thanks?" Clarke said, looking at Griffin thoughtfully for a moment before she looked back at Gobber. "I take it Griffin's healthy?"
"Finest-lookin' Windstriker I've seen in all me years," Gobber nodded at her in approval before his expression became quizzical. "Ye have tae ask?"
"Well, Griffin was the first dragon I ever met, and Hiccup and the others haven't mentioned seeing one themselves, so… well, if you'd seen them before, I wanted to be sure," Clarke clarified, warmly patting the side of her dragon's head. "Anyway, I take it you're here to see Hiccup?"