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

Clarke appreciated that she was basically an amateur at this kind of thing, even before she took dragons into account, but even she knew that she was in the middle of a difficult situation at best. Hiccup and Astrid had gone off to take another look at the ship this 'Viggo' guy had left behind in case they'd missed something, leaving the rest of the Riders to work on putting the outpost back together after the raid.

"How long did it take to build this?" she looked curiously at Fishlegs as they moved a few barrels back into the storehouses.

"Build the Edge?" Fishlegs asked.

"I mean, Hiccup told me you came to this island over a year ago, but how long did it take you to build this place?"

"Uh… a couple of weeks, I think."

"Weeks?" Clarke looked at the rotund Viking in surprise as she indicated the buildings around her. "You did all this in weeks?"

"…Yeah?" Fishlegs looked at her uncertainly. "Is… that a problem?"

"It's just…" Clarke waved her hands at the outpost; even with dragons to make up for the lack of advanced equipment, it was still amazing to think about how quickly they had put this together. "I mean, my people took ages to set up a basic camp when we were in the same place for weeks, and we were in a thick forest with a stable ground; you had to create all of this…"

"Well, Berk got used to rebuilding after we spent the last few generations fighting dragons," Fishlegs shrugged. "When you're constantly under attack from fire-breathing dragons and we're living in wooden huts, we have a lot of experience in rebuilding homes as fast as possible."

"Yeah, but that's working from a pre-existing structure; you seriously put this place together from scratch in a couple of weeks?"

"…How long did it take your people?" Fishlegs looked at her. "To set up their camps, I mean?"

"That's… that's a very involved question," Clarke answered, as Meatlug and Griffin settled into position around their riders as though they were listening to the story herself. "I mean, when I initially reached the mainland, we just adapted our ship to serve as our main house and set up a few food preparation stations and defences around it, and when our main craft arrived, they did the same thing, but at the time we were basically preparing for a war so we didn't have time to really learn how to put actual work into it…"

"You were at war?"

"It just… happened," Clarke said tentatively. "My initial expedition accidentally landed in territory occupied by a native tribe, and we ended up provoking a fight before we realised that there was anything else in the area."

"Oh," Fishlegs said, looking awkwardly at her. "Uh… how did you do that?"

"We were setting off flares to try and alert our people that we were safe and we ended up… well, we set off a few fires before we realised that there was anyone there to get freaked out by what we were doing."

"Ah," Fishlegs nodded in understanding. "You ended up angering the locals?"

"We only realised there was anyone else there to worry about after we provoked some of them by entering their territory and had to kill some of them in self-defence, and after that it wasn't easy to convince them that we weren't just trying to eliminate the competition before the rest of us came down," Clarke explained. "We managed to make a kind of peace with them when we found there was a bigger threat to deal with in the area, but after that fight was over… well, I decided to get out and leave them to sort it all out; it just seemed… better that way."

Fishlegs just nodded in understanding, which Clarke appreciated; she had already surprised herself with how much she'd shared, but the large young man had a gentleness in his manner that made him surprisingly easy to talk to. He was strong enough that he could easily overpower her, but remembering all the times she'd seen him playing around with Meatlug and eagerly making notes of whatever she found in her own studies with the Dragon Eye, it was hard for Clarke to see Fishlegs as anything more than an understanding friend rather than a physical threat.

"I… I'm sorry."

"For what?" Clarke looked at him in surprise.

"That we couldn't… I mean, if you left your people because it wasn't easy-"

"I left because I… I had to get away from everything that had gone wrong," Clarke explained with a reassuring smile, as she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I agree that it's not exactly been easy here either, but you've all been… you accept each other even if you don't always agree, I've never been made to feel like anyone will get kicked out if they don't constantly meet your standards…"

"I thought you said-?"

"I did choose to leave, but that was after some of my friends just kept on criticising me for not managing to find another way to deal with… certain situations," Clarke shrugged awkwardly, not wanting to dwell on those times Octavia, Jasper or Raven had blamed her for deaths she'd honestly done everything she could to avoid. "I never wanted to let people die, but I just always seemed to get stuck in a situation where it was let some die now or risk everyone dying later…"

"That… uh, that sucks," Fishlegs said, looking at her with a sympathetic expression that suddenly made Clarke feel somewhat reassured. From everything she'd heard about the Riders' efforts since coming to the Edge, they'd generally tried to avoid causing too much damage even to their enemies, but here was Fishlegs, listening to her all but explicitly admit that people had died because of her and still not judging her…

"Hey guys!" Tuffnut suddenly ran up to Clarke and Fishlegs. "Hiccup and Astrid are back; they want us all in the main hut!"

Clarke and Fishlegs briefly looked at each other and nodded in understanding before they followed Tuffnut to the Edge's meeting hall, where the other four were already waiting.

"OK," Hiccup nodded at the last three arrivals before he continued, "when Astrid and I got to Viggo's ship from last night, the only thing he'd left there was this."

Hiccup laid a thick-sided wooden box on the table, which contained what looked to Clarke like a basic few islands arranged around what she assumed was water. There were three figures in the box that reminded her vaguely of chess pieces, except that they looked more like stereotypical Vikings, including horned helmets, beards, and axes. Two of the figures were standing up, but the third figure was lying on an island in the middle of the board, apparently broken in half.

"Maces and Talons!" Fishlegs yelled enthusiastically. "Does this mean-?"

"No, Fishlegs," Hiccup cut him off.

"But Maces and Talons was designed to test the abilities and decision making expertise of future chiefs in the heat of battle."

"I'm not taking over as Chief of Berk," Hiccup said firmly. "Viggo left this for me; he wants me to play Maces & Talons with him."

"Viggo's here?" Tuffnut said.

"No," Clarke looked at the male twin in exasperation. "Stop being so literal, Tuffnut; the board is a metaphor for the… game Viggo wants to play with Hiccup!"

"What big picture?" Ruffnut asked, looking up as though it might be above them.

"Viggo's forcing my hand," Hiccup clarified, even as he shot a grateful glance at Clarke for her attempt to explain things. "He's making me play him for Heather's life."

"And what happens if you don't play?" Fishlegs asked.

"I think we can safely assume that Viggo's going to do something with his hostage?" Clarke asked.

In response, Hiccup held up the broken piece from the middle of the board.

"Uh… sorry, I don't know this game; should that mean something to me?" Clarke asked awkwardly.

"It's the Traitor," Astrid explained solemnly.

"And the Traitor always dies at the end of the game…" Fishlegs said, his vow low and his tone anxious as he looked at Hiccup. "You-you have to play, Hiccup; you just have to!"

"And we need a strategy," Snotlout said.

"We do, Snotlout," Hiccup affirmed. "And that strategy has to be different than any he's ever seen or tried, or Heather won't stand a chance."

"Well," Clarke looked over at Hiccup with a tentative smile, "consider me your secret ace in the hole."

"What?" the others looked at her.

"It's a reference to a game my people played with cards," Clarke explained. "Long story short, the Ace in most games is a pretty high card that could basically help win the game if you play it right, and 'in the hole' means that nobody else knows you even have it until you're ready to play it. Obviously this isn't the same kind of game, and I'm not saying I'm your 'ace' in the sense that I'm brilliant, but I think that Griffin and I should be enough of a surprise to throw Viggo off if we're careful."

"My thoughts exactly," Hiccup nodded at Clarke. "If you're sure?"

"Oh, trust me; I'm really looking forward to kicking this guy's ass," Clarke nodded, punching her left palm with her right hand. "Just point us in the right direction and we're there."

"Glad to have you on the team," Hiccup smiled, before his expression became serious. "OK, so far Viggo's priority has been fighting smart and avoiding putting himself in danger, acting as the Marauder equivalent in this game because he can basically be sneaky where he thinks we just stick to the rules."

"So we need to break the rules?" Tuffnut grinned. "I can work with that."

"I was more thinking that we need to work out a way to bend the rules and throw in a few new twists," Hiccup explained.

"Such as that armour you've been putting together with the material from Arrow Station, maybe?"

"It's not ready yet-" Fishlegs began.

"But it doesn't need to be," Hiccup cut the larger Viking off with a growing smile. "If we can use it right, even a bit of extra protection might be enough…"

He glanced over at Clarke as another thought came to him. "Think you can talk Griffin into letting himself get blackened up for a bit?"

"To help him hide when we attack at night?" Clarke grinned. "A bit of soot and armour should help us cover all the angles…"

"Uh… isn't that a bit redundant when we've got Toothless to mount a sneak attack?" Fishlegs asked.

"Not when Viggo's going to expect Toothless," Hiccup explained. "They'll be looking for me and him, but if we can stop anyone seeing Griffin until we're ready for him to be seen, Clarke might just be our… ace in the hole?"

"You have my interest," Clarke grinned. "What do you want me to do?"