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

Sitting in the clubhouse with the others with the rest of the young riders, Clarke was privately ashamed of how well these people were handling the situation compared to how her own had faced some of their past challenges. Frankly, after the way some of her people had basically ended up complaining about things not being handled perfectly on the ground without thinking about the grey areas of the situations facing them, it was slightly refreshing to be faced with a problem where people weren't blaming her for not being able to provide a perfect solution right off the bat.

"So… you don't believe Gobber's theory, right?"

"No," Clarke looked back at Astrid, biting back the scale of her reaction when she registered the obviously sceptical expression on the other girl's face. "I mean, I get that we can't identify what bit Tuffnut right now, but the idea that something like that can make a person turn into something else… it just doesn't work."

"Exactly," Fishlegs said, even as Clarke noted a slight apprehension in his eyes. "I mean, Gobber's story was… well, it's dramatic, but-"

Fishlegs trailed off as he waved an awkward hand, but Clarke was spared from asking him for his further thoughts when Tuffnut walked solemnly into the hut, a wheelbarrow in front of him with a strange mix of objects in it.

"Uh… Tuffnut?" Hiccup looked tentatively at the male twin. "What are you doing?"

In response, Tuffnut sighed sadly as he stopped in front of Clarke and took out a surprisingly shiny mace.

"I give you Macey," he said, passing the large weapon to Clarke. "Hold her dearly, she likes sitting by the window, looking at the moon… the full moon. Ha! The irony."

"Uh… thanks?" Clarke said, as she tentatively took the offered weapon, deciding not to question the idea of naming a weapon (she forced down the sudden question of if any of the Grounders had such a habit back on the mainland). "Not that I don't… appreciate it, but… why me?"

"You offered help in the face of the impossible, and you are the newest Dragon Rider," Tuffnut proclaimed solemnly. "If I'm leaving the group, you'll need a few edges to make up for my absence, and I feel that you and Macey would appreciate each other properly."

"I… right," Clarke nodded, wondering if she should be flattered or bemused at this offer as she held the mace and tested its weight.

"Fishlegs," Tuffnut continued as he moved around the table. "I give you my favourite bowl."

"Hey, that's my bowl!" Fishlegs yelled as he glanced at the bowl in his hands.

"And now, now you've found it," Tuffnut said, still unnervingly calm. "Eat well, my friend. Eat well."

Moving further along, he turned his attention to the group leader. "Hiccup, Hiccup, Hiccup. What do you give the man who has everything?"

With those words, he placed his hands on Ruffnut's shoulders and moved her towards the one-legged man.

"Hey, you can't give me away!" Ruffnut protested.

"In time, she'll come to you," Tuffnut said solemnly, again ignoring the reaction his 'offer' had received. "She's going to take this very hard, and will most certainly go through a prolonged morning period. She's gonna need a new twin brother. I nominate you. It's a terrible job and she smells horrible. You'll have to dress like me and grow your hair long, so there are perks."

"Alright, alright!" Hiccup waved his hands in confusion. "What did I miss?"

"I'm just… preparing myself," Tuffnut said as he moved to the hut's main door.

"For what?" Astrid asked.

"Astrid, have you seen that moon?" Tuffnut indicated the door, with the moon now visible in the dark sky outside. "It rises to its apex, which I think is a word that means the tip-top. I'm going full dragon, Tuffnut Lycanwing."

In response, Snotlout burst out laughing, only to be cut off when Tuffnut was suddenly leaning into the shorter Viking's face. "You're a funny guy, Snotlout; I'll eat you first."

"Tuff, we went over this," Hiccup said in an attempt to be reassuring. "The Lycanwing is a myth, it's not real, you're not turning into a dragon! Fishlegs, Clarke, will you please tell him?"

"It's biologically impossible for the human body to transform in the manner that would be needed for this story to work," Clarke confirmed.

"Well…" Fishlegs said tentatively, only for his voice to trail off into awkward mutterings.

"What?" Clarke looked over at Fishlegs. "Look, I'm sorry to be blunt, but my mother trained me as a healer and you're basically our chronicler; I'm not saying you're stupid, but I think I know more about how the human body works than you do-"

"And you told us that you thought dragons were all dead until you found Griffin," Fishlegs pointed out awkwardly. "How can you know-?"

"Please, don't try and make me feel 'better'," Tuffnut held up his hands. "I must go and say my most difficult goodbye of all, if you'll excuse me."

As the thin blond young man walked out of the hut, Snotlout burst out laughing again, only for Ruffnut to walk to him with rage practically vibrating out of every part of her body.

"What did I tell you?" the female twin glared at the shortest Viking. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU?! YOU are gonna help me fix this, Snotlout! YOU HEAR ME?!"

"Wow, they can really get riled up, huh?" Snotlout grinned as Ruffnut stormed off, only to be met with cold glares from Astrid and Clarke.

"For your sake," Clarke finally stated, "I'm going to assume that's a reference to the twins rather than some misogynist crap about women."

"Miso-what?" Snotlout asked.

"Never mind," Clarke shook her head; there was no time to give a man from what seemed to be the second Viking age a lecture about the meaning of certain terms when she had another 'patient' who was basically suffering a bizarre kind of breakdown.

"OK," Hiccup looked at Clarke. "Any chance that we can help Tuffnut get over this?"

"Well, if he thinks he's going to turn into a dragon tonight, maybe we just… give him until tomorrow morning?" Clarke shrugged. "I mean, when he doesn't turn into anything, he could just… get over this?"

"It's worth a shot," Astrid conceded as she nodded at the other blonde. "Tuffnut might be weird, but he's not that much of an idiot."

"Well, I did my best," Gobber said as Clarke waited outside the stables with Hiccup, Astrid and their dragons, while Tuffnut had apparently spent the night locked in one of the dragon cages. "He's not talking to anyone but that chicken, and he's convinced that the moon didn't apex last night, so it must be tonight."

"Well, that's great," Hiccup shook his head in exasperation, looking at where Tuffnut was anxiously shaking his pet bird in his 'cage'.

"At least he's trying to keep himself locked up from the rest of us," Clarke mused. "I mean, I'm not saying he's going to change, but it says a lot about his priorities."

"Hey," Astrid looked behind and up. "Is that…?"

"Ruffnut… flying Hookfang?" Hiccup said uncertainly as the form of the large red dragon came closer to the Edge.

"Where's Snotlout?" Astrid asked.

"There he is," Gobber observed. "Big lump behind her; tear-stained face."

Clarke only just had time to register the sound of Snotlout's sobs before the dragon basically crash-landed on the edge of the 'landing pad' in front of the stables, Ruffnut rolling off the front while Snotlout fell to the side.

"Oh, rough one," Ruffnut observed as she got back to her feet before Hookfang blew steam at her and lumbered away, leaving Snotlout groaning in pain on the ground.

"What's wrong with him?" Clarke asked, moving over to examine the tear-stained Viking.

"He's been helping me gather samples," Ruffnut said.

"Samples of what?" Clarke asked. In response, Ruffnut held up Snotlout's arm, revealing a series of bite marks between the leather straps the shorter Viking wore.

"Dragon bites," the female twin answered as though anticipating Clarke's question. "One of these has to match Tuff's and convince him that this Lycanwing deal is just another one of his paranoid fantasies."

"Ah," Clarke nodded.

"And why is Snotlout-?" Hiccup began.

"He started this stupid thing with his impressive yet sinister powers of suggestion," Ruffnut said scornfully. "It's all Snotlout's fault my dopey brother thinks he's turning into a dragon."

"Ah," Clarke nodded. "Well, I don't approve of the methods, but I can understand the reasons."

"Looks like you're in this one, Snotlout," Hiccup said nonchalantly.

"Not so funny now, is it?" Ruffnut observed.

"No, Ruffnut," Snotlout said, shaking his head as he held his arm. "Not funny at all."

"Let's go, pal," Ruffnut said, grabbing the Viking and dragging him into the stables.

"Hiccup, Hiccup!" Fishlegs called down as he and Meatlug flew towards the group. "You're not going to believe this! I was at my wit's end, trying to think of something, anything, that could help with this, when my perfect little angel crushed my desk, and-"

"Hold it," Hiccup said, looking over at Fishlegs before he turned to Clarke. "Clarke, actually it just occurred to me; maybe you should you… see if Ruff and Snot need any help?"

"…Sure," Clarke nodded, turning to follow the other two into the stable. She understood that she was being redirected from the main group for some reason, but this wasn't the time to argue about Hiccup keeping something from her. When she was still the newest member of this strange collection of dragon-riding teenagers, she could appreciate that Hiccup might be keeping some things from her when he wasn't sure if she could be trusted long-term.

At least nobody seemed to be playing 'games' with her like what she'd heard about Lexa's first meeting with Jaha and Kane in the Grounders' dungeons; she could cope with being kept in ignorance so long as they weren't actively lying to her, and she'd seen nothing to indicate that they wouldn't eventually tell her the truth once they decided to trust her with it…

"…not flat, it's gotta be round, or oblong at the very least," Tuffnut was saying as Clarke walked up to the cage, Clarke unsure if he was talking to one of his guests or his chicken. "Think about it. The moon, round. Sun, round. My head, oblong."

"Uh… I hate to interrupt this fascinating debate, but-" Ruffnut began from the door of the cage.

"Stand back, sis!" Tuffnut said urgently. "It's not safe to be around me right now; I could go at any minute!"

"If you say so," Clarke observed, as the chicken bawked and the two teens outside the cage looked at her in surprise.

"What are-?" Ruffnut asked.

"Hiccup… sent me to help you out," Clarke explained, before looking over at Tuffnut. "Anyway, if you'll just hold out your arm, we need to check a few things."

"Please," Snotlout said shakily. "I'm pretty sure I need serious medical attention…"

"What happened to you?" Tuffnut looked at the other male teen in surprise as Snotlout placed his arm inside the cage.

"He's basically being used as a test subject to work out what actually bit you," Clarke clarified.

"I think we all know what happened-"

"Then it doesn't hurt anyone for us to be sure," Clarke cut him. "Look, just hold your arm out and we can get this over with."

Nodding in acceptance, Tuffnut walked up to Snotlout and held out his bitten arm.

"Well," the female twin sighed as she and Clarke studied the wound, "we can cross Terrible Terror, Night Terror, wild Nadder, and Gronckle off the list."

"And I take it we're automatically taking Zippleback, Nightmare, Windstriker and Night Fury off the list because there aren't any of those around here apart from ours?" Clarke asked.

"Yeah; if Tuff got bitten by any of our guys, we'd have already worked that bit out," Ruffnut nodded at Clarke before she turned back to Snotlout. "Let's go."

"I'm not going anywhere with-!" Snoutlout began in protest.

"If you don't go with her now, I'm pretty sure she's going to do something more drastic, so put up with it and hope for the best," Clarke cut him off.

"Exactly!" Ruffnut grinned at her before she dragged Snotlout out of the stable, leaving Clarke to look after them with a wistful sigh.

"Are siblings always this determined to help each other?" she glanced at Tuffnut.

"Only kid, huh?" Tuffnut smiled at her.

"Culturally, actually."

"Huh?"

"Space on our ship was so limited that families were all only meant to have one child; two of my original survey mission were basically exiled because their mother had a girl a couple of years after her son and spent over a decade keeping her hidden," Clarke explained with a wistful smile. "They care about each other, but Bellamy sometimes ends up basically smothering Octavia when she'd prefer some independence, and one time he ended up torturing a potential ally because he was worried about her when she was actually fine…"

"Huh," Tuffnut repeated in a more thoughtful manner. "Must've sucked; not having even the option of a sibling, I mean."

"It's hard to judge something when it's all you've ever known," Clarke said. "I had a friend who might as well have been a brother as far as I was concerned, but he… well, he was at least a bit interested in more, until he…"

She shook her head, forcing the painful memories of Wells down, before she turned back to Tuffnut. "Anyway, I'm going to go and try and make sure your sister doesn't kill Snotlout using him as a test subject; just… don't do anything stupid until we get back, OK?"

She wasn't entirely sure how far she could reign the other girl in, but after such mistakes as nearly letting everyone lynch Murphy for Wells' death, she had to do what she could to stop Ruffnut going so far that she basically ended up killing Snotlout…