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

It had almost been a week since their confrontation with the Hunters, and Clarke still couldn't entirely believe how well that particular confrontation had gone. She wasn't going to kid herself into believing that rescuing the Flightmare and stopping Viggo getting the Eye had completely driven the Hunters away for good, but so far the Riders hadn't been able to find any further sign of new Hunter operations since the clash on the island. The twins and Snotlout were constantly on at Hiccup to get back out there and find their enemies, but while Hiccup recognised that the Hunters were still a threat, he was personally content to focus on preparing their current defences and resources rather than actively searching for a fight.

Clarke wasn't entirely sure if that was the best approach, but Astrid had assured Clarke that she could keep an eye out for hunter-related matters while Hiccup focused on his own projects. Having handed 'custody' of the Eye over to Fishlegs for the moment so that the large Viking could continue his research, Hiccup was working on creating more of the wingsuits. He'd taken up Astrid's suggestion of using shed scales from the 'stable' area to make the suits more durable, and had even managed to convince the other Riders to let him take a few measurements to confirm the size he'd need for their own suits.

Frankly, that was the part that really amazed Clarke about Hiccup; the way he was able to work out so many subtle technical details that should have been beyond his cultural upbringing. Taming a dragon to fly for him didn't automatically mean he could understand the mechanics of flight; Clarke might have lived on a space station for most of her life, but even if she'd never really thought about how spacecraft could stay in the air, she appreciated how difficult it was to get the wing dynamics right for any means of artificial flight. From what Astrid had told her, Hiccup had already had a couple of successful test-flights with his previous suit, and that had apparently just been his second attempt to design something like that after a couple of months; the idea that he'd made that much progress so quickly…

Raven might still be the best mechanic Clarke knew, but there was a difference between asking Raven to recreate known technological feats with available resources versus Hiccup being able to put together things like that basically from scratch. If she ever had the chance to introduce them both, once Hiccup had been given a chance to learn some of Raven's tricks…

As much as she wanted to show loyalty to her old friend, Clarke had a feeling that Hiccup would be just that bit sharper than Raven if it came down to him trying to 'out-invent' her once they both had equal access to the same resources and knowledge. Raven was smart, but if Hiccup could master aerodynamics when he was basically starting from scratch while Raven had access to everything the Ark had to teach her, Clarke would be very interested to see what he could do if someone gave him the chance to play with gunpowder and electronics…

"You OK?"

"Just thinking about… stuff," Clarke shrugged as she looked back at Astrid; there was no sense talking about her old friends to her new ones when they all had more immediate potential problems right now. "Any sign of something we should be worried about?"

"Not of Heather, not of the hunters, not of Dagur, not even any new dragons so far," Astrid shook her head. "Fishlegs has become caught up in translating a particular lens combination at the moment, so we haven't found anything new from the Eye, and I don't even know when Heather broke away from the rest of us…"

"Hey, that's not your fault; how were you to know she'd run off like that?" Clarke smiled reassuringly at her new friend. "At least we've still got the Eye, right?"

"Yeah, but after Heather spent all that time undercover for us… I'd just like to know that she's safe now, you know?"

"All we can do is trust that our friends know what they're doing," Clarke said, forcing herself not to think about the former Ark residents; without an immediate war to worry about, she had to believe that her mother and her friends could manage to keep the peace.

"Which doesn't mean we can let our guard down here," Astrid mused, turning her attention back to Clarke's lookout tower. "You know, we've appreciated you spending time in that tower, but… do you want your own hut?"

"My own hut?" Clarke looked at her in surprise that swiftly shifted to a broad grin. "You're serious?"

"Why not?"

"I just… you know I've never done anything like that, right?"

"…What are we talking about here, just to be sure?"

"Built my own hut."

"Right, no lifetime of dragon attacks to give you the experience…" Astrid nodded in brief understanding before she smiled reassuringly at Clarke. "No worries; we can help you put all that together."

"You'd do that?" Clarke grinned gratefully at Astrid.

"Hey, you're one of the team now, which means you deserve your own space," Astrid nodded at Clarke. "I'm just sorry it took this long to confirm that-"

"I'm the new girl in an established group; I would have been surprised if you did accept me that easily," Clarke gave Astrid a reassuring thumbs-up before a sudden burst of activity drew her attention. She glanced over at the source of the motion, but decided not to worry about it when she saw the twins dragging Hiccup somewhere; judging by Hiccup's own dismissive expression, it was probably just the twins being overly dramatic about something rather than a truly urgent matter. "So where should I start?"

"Just work out what kind of hut you'd like and we can probably put something together in a week or so," Astrid assured her as she indicated a couple of the closer outcroppings. "I get that it's still a bit isolated, but if you were up on the cliff it's just…"

"Yeah, it's not really practical for me to have to come down from a mountain like that whenever I need to join you all," Clarke nodded. "I mean, OK, I could use Griffin to get down, but it's not like we want to rely on the dragons for everything, right?"

"Quite," Astrid replied with an approving smile before she turned back to the nearby outcroppings. "We could set up a bridge to go with it… do you have any ideas for your hut?"

"Possibly…" Clarke nodded, already considering the possibilities as she looked at the other huts on the Edge. Her interest in art had always been more about sketching than design, but with the other huts to give her a few examples of what would work, she had a feeling that she could work something out given a bit of time to study the other huts and figure out what would work.

The next morning found Clarke still refining her initial sketches for her new hut; she was willing to accept some input from the others in case she'd made any mistakes in her design, but she thought she had a good idea so far. She had quickly decided that she wanted to set up a secondary room in her planned hut that could be used as a sort of infirmary, given her current status as the Edge's unofficial healer. Beyond that, she had given herself a bed and a small cupboard-feature she could use to hold her things, and dedicated a wall or two that she could use for some of her artwork when she had the time to decorate. She was toying with the thought of asking Astrid or someone else for a few weapons, but she wasn't sure if that would be overdoing it or not, particularly when she still hadn't found her 'niche' weapon.

She had noticed Hiccup and Fishlegs leave on Toothless and Meatlug earlier that morning, an eagerness about Fishlegs' own manner that she hadn't seen from the large Viking before, but it apparently wasn't anything big. Astrid had explained that the other two was just following up a lead they'd found in the Dragon Eye to what was apparently the 'ancestral island home' of the Gronckles and the Boulder class of dragons. It was apparently a fair distance from the Edge, but it was still close enough that they could get there with a few hours' flight, so Hiccup had concluded that just he and Fishlegs would be enough for the trip.

Considering what Clarke really knew about the dragons' origins, she speculated that the island was actually more where the Boulder-class dragons had been raised rather than any kind of ancestral home, but she'd be willing to concede that the island was probably important to those dragons. If Fishlegs wanted to check the island out, she wasn't going to stop him because she had some doubts about the scale of the discovery he'd made. The Eye might have been a prize in a game that gave false historical information about the dragons, but if her new friends hadn't found a reason to disbelieve the biological details they'd learned from the Eye so far she wasn't going to kill the mood by telling them what she knew.

"Hey, Clarkie," a voice suddenly cut into her reflective thoughts. "How's things?"

"Fine," Clarke replied as she looked coolly up at her least liked resident of the island. "How are things, Snotlout?"

"Oh, you know how it is; Astrid's busy supervising the twins as they rebuild that lookout tower, which leaves the two of us free as a Terror-"

"It leaves you free as a Terror; I am designing my hut," Clarke cut him off.

"Your hut?" Snotlout's expression shifted from flirtatious to surprised. "You're settling in?"

"Is there a reason I shouldn't?" Clarke looked back at him as she put down her writing implement, suddenly wondering if she'd missed something important.

"Nope!" Snotlout grinned, dispelling her initial apprehension. "Just surprised Hiccup was ready to relax enough to let another skilled warrior in; he always seemed to think we had a pretty well-oiled machine here-"

"When he's the one who invited me to this island in the first place?"

"Just shows he knows a good thing when he sees it," Snotlout said, his grin becoming a bit more uncomfortable as he looked Clarke over. "And I have to agree with-"

"Take this any further and I will take my boot and deliver it at full force to a certain area between your legs," Clarke replied in a cool tone even as she turned her focus back to sketching out her hut.

She appreciated that Snotlout had shown some of his better qualities during that incident with the female Monstrous Nightmare a few weeks back, but it wasn't enough for her to find him seriously attractive, and after the way things had turned out with Finn it was best to nip even the possibility of something similar in the bud as soon as possible. That said, she was satisfied when Snotlout winced and turned around to walk away, leaving her to continue refining her own plans.

Assuming that the other huts are any example of what Hiccup and the others are capable of, I just need something a bit bigger than two of my original cell… I don't want a full traditional house, just somewhere I can be alone…

The sound of a grumble drew Clarke out of her thoughts.

"Hey, Fishlegs," she said as she looked up. "Wasn't expecting you…"

She trailed off as she found herself looking at an unfamiliar orange Gronckle, with a grin on its face that Clarke wanted to recognise as 'cautious' even with the obvious challenges in trying to translate the expression of an unknown dragon.

"Huh," she said, lost for a better response as the Gronckle seemed to grin back at her. "You're… new, aren't you?"

The Gronckle just rumbled at her in response before Clarke heard a more familiar growl over her shoulder.

"Griffin," she looked back at her dragon with a teasing smile, "there's no need to be jealous; you're still… my…"

She trailed off as she saw another pair of Gronckles squatting behind the Windstriker, while the twins were coming into land on Barf and Belch with an exasperated expression on their faces.

"Uh… is this something you just didn't tell me about?" she looked cautiously at the twins.

"Definitely not," Tuffnut nodded.

"Oh yeah," Ruffnut agreed. "Turns out these guys have been the reason we've been having trouble setting up our new observation tower on the other side of the Edge; we're just trying to round them up and work out our next move."

"Ah," Clarke nodded in understanding as she looked at the gathered dragons. "This… is going to be tricky, right?"

"Until we know what these dragons are doing here, we basically have to make them our top priority," Astrid confirmed as she and Stormfly flew down to join them, looking apologetically at the other blonde. "Sorry to do this to you, Clarke, but making your own hut is on hold until we can sort out where these Gronckles came from."

"You were making your own hut?" Tuffnut looked at Clarke in surprise.

"I was drawing up plans," Clarke clarified, even as she folded up her drawing and tucked it into her pocket. "But don't worry, Astrid; I get that we have bigger problems to deal with right now."

She'd just have to keep the plans safe for when this apparent Gronckle migration was finished…