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 beside Griffin as she examined his wing, a couple of days after he had expressed his willingness to take her for a flight, Clarke wasn't entirely sure if she was just eager to get the chance to take him up on his offer, but as far as she could tell the joint seemed like it was completely healed. There might be a faint line around the break when she felt it as closely as she dared, but she couldn't find anything that didn't seem like the natural result of an injury having healed over.

Maybe I just want to get away before I have to start seriously worrying about finding a new place to leave his shit, but this does feel like it's healed.

"OK," she said, stepping back from the dragon to give him a tentative smile. "This… this is it, I guess. Your wing feels like it's better now, but just take it easy at first, and then we'll-"

Further words were rendered pointless as Griffin flapped his wings downwards and lifted himself up into the air, letting out a triumphant roar in the process. His wings beat slowly, but the dragon moved rapidly through the air, building up speed as he looped and banked all over the sky, occasionally letting out an enthusiastic roar as he enjoyed his restored flight. Back on the ground, Clarke smiled in satisfaction at the sight of her dragon friend back in his element, until he suddenly banked his wings and came back down to land back on the beach beside her. For a moment Clarke stepped back, unable to shake the initial fear that he was about to turn on her like so many other things had on the ground, before Griffin shrugged his slender shoulders and looked at her with a quizzical stare.

"You… you're still up for that?" Clarke asked, her grin becoming even broader at the idea of what the dragon was offering her; the promise he'd made when he was healing was one thing, but the fact that he was still willing to make this offer when his wing seemed to be healed… that Griffin wanted her to get onto his back even when he didn't have to stay with her…

The moment was ruined when a net suddenly dropped over Griffin, weights holding his wings on the ground as four figures in leather leant their own presence to the large stones. Clarke took a step forward to try and help him, but she suddenly found a pair of arms wrapped around her, followed by a sixth figure grabbing Griffin's mouth and strapping a large leather belt around it.

Confirming that she didn't recognise any of the people around her, along with their unfamiliar tattoo patterns, Clarke swiftly focused on her own enemy, awkwardly kicking upwards and behind herself so that her foot struck a point between her would-be captor's legs. Twisting her head as far around as she could, Clarke found herself looking at an older man with long brown hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and an athletic build, but didn't allow herself time to think about his potential physical advantages as she pulled her knife out of her belt and stabbed him in the side. The wound wouldn't do much long-term, but it sent her attacker staggering back far enough for Clarke to follow it up with a kick to his chest, leaving her to turn her attention to the rest of this man's group where they had gathered around her dragon.

As though acting on a cue, Griffin swept his tail out, knocking the two attackers closest to his tail off their feet. Kicking upwards with his rear legs, Griffin was able to create enough of an updraft to knock the other two hunters holding down the net away from him, but the sixth member of the hunting party was still holding tightly onto his muzzle. For a moment Clarke hoped that the loss of the other four hunters would give Griffin a chance to fly away, but she quickly realised that his wings had become tangled with the net. Even if the dragon could get off the ground, the extra weight of the net would hinder his attempts to actually do anything, and she didn't want to risk him trying to break the net on his own in case it re-injured his just-healed wing. Lost for a better option, Clarke literally leapt onto the nearest man to force him to the ground, kicking out as another man came up behind her while simultaneously slamming her current opponent's head into the ground.

Getting back to her feet as she looked at Griffin, one man unconscious while the other was gasping for air, Clarke was relieved to see that the dragon was unharmed apart from the leather strip keeping his mouth shut, but the net was tangled around his wings and she didn't have the time to get it off with their attackers still gathered around him. If she ran off, she might be able to draw some of the men away, but that would leave Griffin basically defenceless thanks to the hindrance of that net and muzzle if even one of the men stayed behind to deal with him, and she had no guarantee that these people wouldn't just capture him as a trophy or even kill him for food while she was away.

Maybe some people would say that it was stupid to risk her life for an animal, but even if she wasn't talking about what may be the last dragon on Earth, Griffin had put so much trust in her over the last few days that Clarke couldn't just abandon him…

Rolling off the man she'd just knocked out, Clarke scrambled back to her feet and lashed out with a punch at the man charging towards her, smiling in satisfaction as she saw blood erupt from the man's lips and a tooth or two fly from his mouth. Adjusting her grip on her knife, Clarke was able to stab a third attacker in the arm as he tried to grab her, pulling it out and slashing at a fourth man. As the man pressed his hand to his bleeding chest, Clarke knocked him back with a kick to the chest and spun around to find the bearded man approaching her with a raised sword. Clarke raised her knife, knowing that she had virtually no chance of fending him off but determined to try something-

A blast of what Clarke could only think of as purple fire struck the ground in front of her, sending her would-be attacker flying backwards. With her other attackers frozen in shock at this twist, Clarke looked up and found herself staring in awe at the sight of another dragon flying through the air. Until Griffin, this one was significantly shorter even from a distance, completely black in colour, with a very short neck and a wide face, as well as multiple fins along its long tail.

However, what struck Clarke most about the creature was that there was someone on its back. The dragon was moving too quickly for her to see the rider clearly, but she could see brown lines against the dragon's black body, and it was possible to observe a figure squatting on its back when the dragon turned its body in the right manner.

There are more, Clarke thought to herself, grinning as the black dragon swung around through the air and began to head back towards the now-deserted beach. Griffin isn't the last… there are more dragons… and people ride them…

Clarke didn't know where that other man had come from or how he'd tamed that dragon, but he was clearly not on the same side as her current attackers, so she was going to assume he was here to help her and Griffin until he proved otherwise. As the sword-wielder scrambled to his feet, Clarke lunged for a man who was about to grab Griffin by the head, knocking him down with such force that his arm snapped as it hit a rock, leaving Griffin free to swing his head around and knock another attacker back into the woods. Taking up position alongside her dragon, Clarke briefly flinched as more purple blasts hit the ground, but a glance behind confirmed that the other dragon had just destroyed the rocks that had been holding the net down, allowing Griffin to spread his wings and tear the net to pieces with a muffled roar. As the black dragon and its rider came towards the ground, the man with the sword yelled something that prompted his remaining conscious men to run back into the woods, holding their injuries and abandoning their two unconscious comrades.

As soon as she'd confirmed that the attackers were running away, Clarke's full attention was focused on Griffin, cutting through the leather strap holding his mouth shut before a faint sound prompted her to turn around, revealing that the black dragon had landed beside her and its rider had gotten off.

Looking clearly at this strange new arrival for the first time, Clarke was surprised to see that the rider was a young man who didn't seem to be that much older than her. He was wearing a brown leather vest over a red shirt with green trousers, and he had thick messy brown hair and a faint scar on his chin, his appearance lean and thin in a manner that nevertheless gave a sense of purpose and strength. What struck Clarke most keenly about him was that his left leg was a complex-looking system of metal and wood from below the knee, still a primitive design compared to some that she'd seen up on the Ark but nevertheless far more advanced than she would have expected from grounder 'technology' so far. For a moment Griffin growled at this new arrival, but then the black dragon essentially barked (Clarke couldn't think of a better term for it) at Griffin and her dragon seemed to calm down, sitting back slightly and raising his head to look curiously at the black dragon.

"Uh… hi?" Clarke said at last, after the young man had spent the last few moments looking curiously at her.

"…Hi," the young man replied, in a cautious tone that immediately suggested to Clarke that English wasn't his first language even if he knew it. "Are you… all right?"

"We're fine, thanks to you," Clarke said, moving slightly so that she was standing beside Griffin, not so close as to be considered a threat but close enough that it should be clear to both man and dragon that she was sticking to her dragon. "How did you find us?"

"I was tracking… another dragon… that had been flying this way, and I heard your Windstriker roaring," the boy explained. "We took a detour, I saw six on one with a dragon in the middle of it, and… well, I'd normally stay out of someone's private business, but when you were outnumbered and trying to defend this guy… I got curious."

"Believe me, I'm not complaining if you decided to help out," Clarke said, reaching out to stroke Griffin's neck. "If you hadn't shown up… I mean, Griffin's wing only just finished healing…"

"He was injured?" the young man looked at the dragon with new curiosity.

"I think Griffin broke his wing against… well, that," Clarke waved her hand at the remains of Arrow Station. "I found him a couple of weeks ago, and I spent some time getting his wing back in order."

"And he's the first dragon you've met?"

"Yeah," Clarke nodded, looking at him with new curiosity. "How did you know?"

"You were looking at Toothless here with too much surprise if you were familiar with dragons," the young man explained.

"Toothless?" Clarke repeated, looking at the black dragon in surprise. As though in response, the black dragon opened its mouth to reveal toothless gums, only for teeth to spring out of those gums as Clarke watched. "Whoa… retractable teeth?"

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," the boy shrugged, before looking curiously at her. "So, if your dragon's Griffin… who are you?"

"Clarke," Clarke decided to say, fingers crossed that her actual name wasn't public knowledge yet; from what she'd seen, there weren't that many blondes of her shade among the grounders, so descriptions were likely to focus on details like that and this man hadn't reacted to her appearance. "And you are?"

"Hiccup," the boy replied.

"Hiccup?" Clarke repeated in surprise.

"Tribal tradition," the now-named Hiccup shrugged with a sheepish smile. "Runt of the litter gets called a hiccup."

"Ah," Clarke nodded, deciding not to ask for more information about something that was likely a sensitive issue as she turned her attention to focus on Toothless, searching her memory for her father's old tales of the various dragon species before turning back to the dragon's rider. "So… he's a Night Fury, right?"

"Yeah," Hiccup nodded, looking at her with new curiosity. "You know about them?"

"Just… well, my dad was a big fan of them," Clarke shrugged. "He told me a lot of stories about them when I was growing up, and I was always fascinated by them, and when I found Griffin injured… well, I had to help him."

"Looks like you did a good job," Hiccup said, walking over to examine Griffin's wing as Toothless moved to stand in front of her dragon, the two dragons exchanging low growls. "I mean, considering you never treated a dragon before, this is pretty good…"

"My mom trained me as a healer; it wasn't hard to adapt that experience to a broken wing," Clarke shrugged. "What about Toothless? Where did you meet him?"

"In the woods by my village," Hiccup explained, taking his hand from Griffin's wing to look at Clarke with a slight shrug. "He was… well, he was wounded, and I helped him get back in the air."

"Wounded?" Clarke repeated, looking over the black dragon before her gaze settled on the red fin on Toothless's tail, which she now saw was connected to the saddle via a complex set of cables. "That's artificial? You made that?"

"Took a while to work it out, but… well, here we are," Hiccup shrugged, looking at Griffin for a moment before he looked back at Clarke. "So, if your dragon's healthy… do you have anywhere to go now?"

"Not… exactly," Clarke said, a tentative smile spreading across her face as she considered the implications of what she thought her new acquaintance was leading up to. "I just… I wanted to get away from everyone back home for a while…"

"Well," Hiccup stepped back to smile at her, "it won't exactly be quiet, but if you like dragons and want to get away for a bit, I think I might have something to offer."

As far as Clarke was concerned, that was all he needed to say.

"Let's go," she said, sliding into position on Griffin's back, the spines making a surprisingly comfortable 'seat' for her. "How long?"

"Just a few hours," Hiccup replied as he got back onto Toothless himself. "Depending on how fast you are, of course…"