Do You Mind? Chapter 6
Fishlegs awoke slowly. Judging by how he was lying, he and Meatlug had been falling mostly down, with some forward motion, when they'd hit the cliff in the fog. Judging by the broken horns on his helmet, he'd hit the wall headfirst; his helmet had probably saved his life. He had some bruises on his arms and legs, and a sore neck, but seemed intact otherwise.
Meatlug was lying on her side, snoring lustily. The impact with the rock cliff apparently hadn't done her any harm; that was the good news. The bad news was that the cliff was carved out of the side of a thick rocky spire that disappeared out of sight into the mist, both upwards and downwards. They had about sixty square feet of rock; beyond that, they had to either fly or fall. Meatlug took up most of that space.
"Meatlug? Are you okay?" The sleeping dragon ignored him.
"Meatlug? Are you okay?" he thought.
It took her a few seconds to return to consciousness. "What's wrong?"
"Well, we're stuck on this cliff, and the only way off of it is to fly."
"Oh. Good thing I can fly, then. I thought there was a problem." She began to drift off again.
"Meatlug, we need to get off of here before we fall off by accident!"
"Fishlegs, my little pink friend, I'm not going anywhere, by accident or on purpose. So if you hold still too, we'll both be fine."
"But... what if I fall asleep, and roll over, and fall off? Can't we get down on the ground now?"
"Don't you remember the Gronckles' First Law of Motion? 'A Gronckle at rest tends to remain at rest. A Gronckle in motion would rather be at rest.' I am resting. You don't want me to break the law, do you?"
"I think there's something in that law about 'unless acted on by an external force,' isn't there?"
"We Gronckles are great at ignoring external forces. Fishlegs, you really ought to take more naps. You'd be a lot more relaxed overall, you'll understand me better, and you'd be less stressed about little things like being stuck on a cliff a quarter mile above the ground. And since I'm not going anywhere for a while, and you can't go anywhere without me, you might as well take a nap. Trust me, you'll love it."
"What if I get hungry? Which I am."
A deep snore was all the answer he got.
All the gear on Meatlug's back had apparently broken loose and fallen off when she hit the cliff. The rocks weren't very comfortable to lie on. His tummy was rumbling, he didn't know where he was, there was no way for his friends to find him, and he couldn't do a thing about it.
He tried to think of something good about the position he was in.
"Dagur and Alvin aren't around" was the best he could come up with.
o
"Okay, we've got three dragons," Astrid began. "We probably have a couple of hours before the sun goes down. We need to search for the others."
"That's going to be hard," Snotlout said. "We can't get very high without going into the fog, and if we stay low, we can't see very far."
"That's true," she nodded. "We'll just do the best we can. We'll spread out, fly straight out from here for a while, turn left, and fly back. That will cover the most ground in the least amount of time."
"Should we split up in this strange place?" Tuffnut asked. "What if some more of those terror-soars dive on us? We could wind up downed and... alone."
"You almost sound scared of that, Tuffnut!" Snotlout taunted. "Where's your sense of adventure?"
"Never mind that," Astrid cut in. Something about Tuff's attitude when he talked about being alone... she'd sort out the details later. "We'll just form a line, go out, turn together, and come back here. We won't cover as much ground, but we'll be safe."
"Gobber said safety is overrated," Lout pointed out.
"That was just before the Boneknapper Dragon attacked us, and you'd have given your right arm for a little safety," Astrid shot back. "We stay together for now." They mounted up and sprang into the air.
"Spread out a little more," she shouted. Hookfang slid away easily; Barf and Belch took longer.
"It takes me a second to get the word to both heads," Tuff called.
They flew eastward just below the fog layer, which got them about a hundred and fifty feet above the ground. Many of the trees were taller than that, so they had to swerve from time to time. Those trees looked strange; they weren't the pines and other conifers that grew on Berk. The low-growing plants also looked different to them.
"What... is that?" Snotlout suddenly shouted, and pointed to their right. "That" was almost as big as Hookfang and had a vaguely dragon-like appearance, including the nasty big pointy teeth, but it had no wings and walked on two legs. It glared at them and hissed, but they were far too high for it to reach.
Snotlout went a bit pale. "I am very glad that we're up here and that is down there."
"My sister is down there too," Tuff pointed out.
"So is Hiccup," Astrid worried.
"They've got Toothless. He can protect them, right?" Lout suggested.
"As long as Toothless is okay," Astrid said. "There may be something wrong with him. Otherwise, the three of them would have flown out of the fog by the time I went up to find Tuff."
"Did I mention, I wanted only good news?" Tuff quavered.
"I thought you said your sister could take care of herself!" Snotlout shouted.
"Hiccup, she can handle," Tuff called back. "That thing... not so much."
"Maybe we should have our dragons flame it and take it out," Snotlout suggested.
"What if it breathes fire and injures one of us?" Astrid asked. "No, let's leave it alone. Our best plan is to find our friends and get out of this place." They flew in silence, turned when she thought they'd gone far enough, and swept back until they found the lake again. They landed just as the sunlight was beginning to fade.
"My sleeping gear is still damp," she lamented.
"Mine is still soaked," Snotlout complained.
"Should I throw mine in the lake for a minute, just so I don't feel left out?" Tuff asked.
"Hey!" Astrid burst out. "Don't you have Ruff's sleeping gear, too?"
"Yeah, I think so," Tuff nodded.
"That's a little help," she decided. "Snotlout, you and Tuff can share his dry tent; I'll use hers. One of us can use her sleeping roll; there's no sense in both of us sleeping in damp stuff."
"Okay, who gets the dry stuff?" Snotlout asked. "Do we draw straws, or do we arm-wrestle for it?"
"You could be a gentleman and let the lady sleep on the dry stuff," she said with a hint of a smile.
"I'm a Viking; I don't know what a 'gentleman' is," he grinned.
"Oh, I forgot, you don't know any words of three syllables or more," she said, with the same partial grin. "I guess we'll draw straws, then." She found some dry grass and picked two pieces of differing lengths. She made sure the fatter of the two was also the shorter one. She held them out, and sure enough, Lout went for the bigger-looking one.
"I guess you lose," she said, trying not to look too triumphant. "Next time, unload your sensible dragon before he goes for a dip."
With their dragons on guard duty, they knew they were safe, but they still slept restlessly.