I do appreciate reviews, after all, I can't get better if you don't tell me where I'm going wrong.

It had been almost three months since Fishlegs had come up with his plan, and so far there had been no unexpected raids. Sure, there had been a couple of times when they hadn't shown up at all, but everyone felt that it was better to have prepared pointlessly than to have been caught unprepared. Fishlegs and his numbers had become almost indispensable to the village. The winter had been one of the hardest in memory, but the whole village knew that it would have been much, much worse if they had chosen not to listen.

With winter slowly releasing the land, people were looking ahead again. It was almost time for their annual meeting with the Bog Burglars, which mostly consisted of Stoick and Bertha arguing a lot before having a drinking competition. There had been a rivalry between their clans for many years, sometimes friendly, sometimes not. They were fairly friendly at the moment which meant the likelihood of bloodshed was very low.

Astrid was particularly glad of this as she had been placed in charge of the trips guards. It had been an unusual appointment as she was still very young, but as trouble was unlikely Stoick and the council had decided that the experience would be good for her. She felt a pang of sadness at the realisation that her position meant her childhood was well and truly over. Time was starting to take its toll on their group. Fishlegs would be staying on Berk working on his raid predictions, with Ruffnut staying to make sure he remembered to eat and sleep. Snotlout would be going too; it would be his first trip somewhere as the Heir to the tribe. She could scarcely recognise him as the boy who had been so resolute in pursuing her. After the …incident… with the Nightmare which had culminated in him losing his left leg he had become much more conscientious and self-aware. Gone was the battle-lust, the ego (well, most of) and the bragging. After his recovery, which had been slow and painful, he began spending more and more time shadowing his uncle, learning the duties expected of him. They actually made a decent fighting duo with his brute force providing a countrpoint to her nimbleness and speed. Astrid was starting to rethink her opinion of him, but it seemed that whenever they were getting close, the old Snotlout would re-emerge and spoil it.

Giving her braid a tug, she sighed. He might not be as annoying as he used to be, but still… She just didn't seem to 'click' with him at all. What was wrong with her?

Camicazi, Heir to the Bog-Burglar Tribe and daughter of Big-Boobied Bertha, thief extraordinaire and master swordswoman, was worried. It was not a feeling she was fond of, but at least she was not alone in feeling it. The entire tribe was on edge. They weren't frightened by storms, were unfazed by pirates, but one man-child being almost a week late? That unsettled them. They had not thought much of him being late, not at first. Poor winds could have delayed him, or he could have been working on one of his new inventions and lost track of time. No, the delay wasn't what was worrying her. It was the fact that one of their fishing boats had seen Hiccup's Cutter floating aimlessly. There had been no-one on board, and it was fire-damaged. Having seen first-hand what Hiccup, never mind his Night-Fury companion, was capable of, she dreaded to think what it would have taken to overcome them. It was the presence of the boat that finally made up her mind. She'd waited long enough, secrecy be damned!

She arrived back at her house in time to see her mother shooting down yet ANOTHER ill-planned 'rescue' mission. The location of Hiccup's island was a secret known only to her, and she had promised to keep it that way unless it was a life or death situation.

Cutting into the conversation she said simply;

'I'll go.'

'Don't be foolish, We don't know where he is, and I simply can't spare a ship to go searching, not with the Hooligans arriving in less than a week.'

Cami coughed awkwardly, and said with a trace of hesitancy;

'Actually, I do. It's not even that far from here, maybe three hours flight. I can be there and back by tomorrow, if you'll let me go…'

Bertha's eyes had bulged at this, and she very nearly exploded. Drawing in a few deep breaths, she spoke with a dangerous calmness.

'And you didn't think to mention this to us before now!?'

Cami cut in again, knowing that her mother was liable to descend into a rage-filled rant that could last for ages.

'He made me swear okay? I know we're liars and thieves, but he made me swear an oath!'

This seemed to placate her mother, and the throbbing vein in her temple slowly disappeared.

'Three hours away you say? Fine, I'll let you go on one condition. I'm going with you. I want to know where he is, and what's so damned important that he needs to hide an entire Island from us!'

The look in her eye suggested bad things happening if she argued, so Cami wisely bit her tongue.