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

"So," Gobber said thoughtfully as he looked up at Arrow Station, "this is what your people travelled in?"

"Well, I didn't spend much time in this part of it myself, but it's pretty typical of it all, yeah," Clarke nodded from her position beside the blacksmith. Once Tuffnut and Snotlout had each been confirmed to be healthy after their recent attacks, Gobber had taken a look over the metal the Riders had gathered from Arrow Station and affirmed his agreement that the metal had potential if it was heated in the right manner. Gobber had initially just been willing to see about helping Hiccup go over the available metal to start making a few new weapons for the Riders, but when he'd learned that there was more metal available, he had expressed an interest in going back to see what the ship was like.

Hiccup had taken a day or so to focus on finishing Griffin's saddle while Gobber did some early work with the metal samples he'd gathered so far, and Clarke had to admit that it was far more comfortable flying around on a dragon with the saddle rather than just riding on his bare back. With Ruffnut staying at the Edge to keep an eye on Tuffnut and Snotlout taking a few days off to confirm that he had recovered from his time as a test subject, Gobber had been allowed to 'borrow' Hookfang when the group went to take another look at the remains of Arrow Station.

At the moment, Hookhang and Griffin were assisting Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs and their dragons in breaking the station up even further, while Gobber and Clarke watched from further down the beach to guard the nets they'd gathered to collect the metal once they'd finished. Gobber had already estimated that it would take a couple of trips to bring the remaining metal from the station back, allowing for how some of the metal would be destroyed by the dragons blasting or melting it, so the current plan was to get a suitable amount of metal together for Astrid and Clarke to take back to the Edge in the first load, while the other riders and dragons finished breaking down the rest of it.

It wasn't the way Clarke had imagined sharing the resources of the Ark with the people on the Ground, but when Arrow Station wouldn't have had much in the way of useful technology even if it had come down intact, she supposed that she should just be content that she was able to share anything at all with her new friends beyond her own attempts at medical assistance. Weapons might have been the first thought of most of the Riders when she introduced the idea of new metal to the equation, but she had faith that Hiccup and the others wouldn't use those weapons to go after her people.

Besides… after seeing how Finn had managed to slaughter eighteen innocent people because he had a gun and was facing a culture with no way to counter his weapons, Clarke would frankly be content if she never had to worry about guns again. The Riders might have dragons or bows and arrows, but at least bows and arrows couldn't kill people if they were in the hands of unskilled fighters, and dragons wouldn't be indiscriminate killers in the same sense as Finn had been.

What does it say about us when I have more faith in animals than I do in my own people?

Watching as Griffin fired a burst of hot air against a loose piece of metal to knock it off its last support, Clarke felt ashamed at the thought; Griffin might not be able to talk, but he wasn't an 'animal' in the traditional sense. From the moment she'd met him by Arrow Station, she'd never had any doubt that he wasn't going to hurt her, all of the Riders' dragons were warm and friendly, and even that Titan Wing Monstrous Nightmare had only been focused on defending its territory rather than attacking any of them…

"So, lass," Gobber broke the silence as he looked at Clarke in a more probing manner than anything Clarke had expected of the large man after his stories of the Lycanwing, "can I presume you're from the sky-islands?"

"The what?" Clarke looked at Gobber in surprise before she tried to play up her sense of confusion. "What are you- I don't-?"

"Come now, lass," Gobber smiled at her, "I'm not going ter say I know everything about those old legends, but there are a few stories among Bork's papers that mentions what the world was like before the dragons ran rampant. Details are a little tricky, I grant ye, and we're still not sure how literal some of 'em are, but those tales include quite a bit of talk about how we used ter have homes and outposts that flew far above anything even the dragons are capable of."

"They do?" Clarke asked, her initial idea to deny Gobber's question forgotten in the face of this new information.

He knows what came before?

"Nothing too detailed, obviously, but the knowledge has been passed down for some time in the right circles," Gobber explained, looking up at the riders as they continued to work away at the metal around the former space station's upper levels before he focused his attention back on Clarke. "And since ye haven't told these young warriors anythin' 'bout your past yet, thought I'd bring it up meself an' see what ye had to say."

"It's… not that I was hiding it to be secret or anything, I just… I didn't know if you'd believe any of it," Clarke began to tentatively explain. "I mean, none of the riders ever mentioned they had any kind of idea what Arrow Station really was when I brought them here before, and after what happened last time…"

"Last time?"

"I… before I met you all, I met another group further inland from here, and… well, it wasn't just because of where we came from, but things with our groups… didn't go well," Clarke shrugged, before she looked back at Gobber. "What do you know about… well, the world before the dragons?"

"Just a few points," Gobber shrugged, even as he looked at Clarke in a contemplative manner. "Like I said, Bork's papers don't go into much detail about what everything was like before things went wrong, but there was apparently some kind o'… massive catastrophe that ended up letting the dragons go loose an' start bein' such a problem in the first place."

"That… makes sense," Clarke nodded tentatively. She wasn't ready to tell any of the Riders that the dragons had been genetically engineered, even if their culture probably wouldn't even understand the concept of something like that, but if Gobber had this much information it might be worth seeing what else he knew about the world before. "It was a bit more… complicated than that, from what I know from my peoples' own tales, but to be fair we didn't even know that there was anyone left on the ground before a few months ago."

"The ground?" Gobber looked at Clarke with new intensity, even as his gaze shifted back to study Arrow Station. "So… we're not talkin' 'bout floating islands, are we? This ship o' yours… it flew?"

"Sort of," Clarke said, mind racing over the best way to explain things; Gobber might be aware of the basic idea that there was some advanced world that was destroyed by some big disaster, but she had to keep in mind that he probably didn't have the scientific background to understand how some things worked. "What you're looking at was basically part of a larger structure that could… well, think of it like a ship that could stay in the sky without needing to land, and my people lived there for the better part of a century."

"You lived in the sky?"

"Basically, yeah," Clarke nodded.

"So… if you people used ter live in the sky…" Gobber looked tentatively at Clarke. "I mean, Hiccup mentioned that yeh told him ye left yer people after helping them find a new place ter live; can I assume that new place would be… well, the ground? As in, you're new ter Midgard itself?"

"…Yeah," Clarke nodded tentatively; Norse mythology wasn't a strong point for her, but those Marvel movies definitely referred to Earth as 'Midgard' more than once. "Basically, our ship couldn't stay up there any more because things were just starting to break down, so we… a few of us were sent on ahead to make sure everything was survivable, and then we had a few bad encounters with the locals…"

"Who live somewhere out there, I'm guessing?" Gobber indicated the forest further inland.

"A good couple of weeks' walk from here, anyway; I don't know how far that would be by dragon."

"And ye didn't think o' goin' back?"

"I…" Clarke began, before she solemnly shook her head. "No."

"No?"

"I… I had to get away," Clarke said, clenching her fists to maintain control of herself as she spoke, trying to look everywhere but in Gobber's direction. "Everything went wrong… so many innocent people… I kept on trying to save everyone, and people just kept on… either they died or they blamed me for not doing something else that I knew wouldn't have worked and they wouldn't let me explain…"

She broke off, not trusting herself to say anything else without losing control at the moment, and looked over with a smile to where the red-and-orange Windstriker was flying alongside Stormfly, tearing at the molten metal with its claws after the Nadder had melted it more directly. "And then I met Griffin, and it was like there was something on the ground that I could actually care about that wouldn't just end up turning on me because I didn't live up to their standards… something that I could protect and help who wouldn't start complaining because I can't be perfect…"

"Had it rough back home, eh?"

"That is putting it mildly," Clarke observed with a bitter smile. "I mean, I'm not saying I did a perfect job, but there has to be a line between completely accepting my decisions and hating me for making them when it's too late…"

"Eh, leaders never have it easy," Gobber smiled slightly at her, before his expression became more solemn. "But… if you think you left your people in a safe state… we've been trustin' these kids with operations on the Edge when they're our best Riders, so I can't exactly criticise ye for decidin' ter try an' do somethin' else after doing so much for yer people."

"Thanks-" Clarke began.

"If ye're sure ye've done everything ye can for 'em," Gobber said. "I spent so much time treating Hiccup like he was doin' fine when he was growin' up 'cause I never stopped to really look at what he needed ter be, an' just told him what he needed ter be rather than try and help him find some kind o' middle ground…"

"Huh," Clarke said, lost for a better response as she looked uncertainly at the two-limbed man. "So… you think I should go back?"

"I think ye should think 'bout whether your people need ye there or not," the blacksmith observed. "Ye could prob'ly do with the chance to just be responsible for yerself for a time if ye were a leader back home- Thor knows even Stoick appreciates some time away from Berk these days- but just think 'bout if you're staying away because ye don't want ter go back or if ye're sure they don't need ye any more."

Clarke just stood in silence for a moment, before Griffin broke the silence by flying over to land beside her, nuzzling his head against her with a warm rumble that prompted Clarke to give him a brief hug around his horn.

The talk with Gobber might not have given her anything particularly new, but at least she'd been given some sign that this culture had something to do with the original cataclysm, and it had been… nice… to talk about her past with someone.

It wasn't that Gobber hadn't made some interesting points, but she just… she'd been through so much since she got to the ground, and nobody back at the Ark actually wanted her any more; Wells was dead, her father was dead, her mother didn't understand her, her old friends all hated her for various reasons, Lexa had betrayed her…

Wasn't it just better for everyone back on the Ark if she just left them all alone and stayed with the Riders to explore her fresh start?