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.

AN: Hope you enjoy my new take on 'Blindsided', as certain characters have to deal with some very different dragons…

The Dragon of Wanheda

The following morning, Clarke was relieved to find that the stable fire was the worst that the outpost had suffered in terms of physical damage. Obviously the dragons were still missing apart from Toothless, but at least the stables were the only thing they would have to actually rebuild once they'd found their missing partners.

"OK," Tuffnut said as the riders gathered around Astrid in the main meeting hall. "Thorston Blind Field Test, numero uno; who is standing right in front of you?"

"Tuff, I know it's you," Astrid said, exasperation clear in her voice.

"She got it!" Tuffnut yelled gleefully, obviously missing the point. "She's fine, everybody! Oh thank Thor; that was a close one."

"It doesn't take sight to recognise your voice, Tuffnut," Clarke shook her head in bemusement at the teen Viking as she stood up from the small table she'd brought down to the hall to finish preparing the first stage of her treatment. "OK, Astrid, are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Astrid nodded.

"Good," Clarke smiled encouragingly- maybe the patient couldn't see her, but some habits were hard to break- as she walked up to Astrid and tied the blindfold around her head, just below her headband (apparently her kransen, from what Clarke had overhead) so that it would cover her eyes. She had to resist the urge to put the final knot at the back of Astrid's head, settling for leaving it at a point between her ponytail and her ear where it wouldn't be as exposed, to limit the risk of it hitting something and coming loose. "Now, this might smell a bit, but from what I've been reading, the mixture should help soothe some of the damage your eyes might have suffered in the initial exposure. The blindfold gives your eyes further chances to heal by stopping any more light getting to them, but after that… well, all we can give you is time and patience."

"We'll send for Gothi to get a second opinion once we've found the dragons-" Hiccup began.

"But the dragons are our priority right now," Astrid cut him off firmly. "They're out there, and obviously scared, or they would have come back right now."

"She's right," Hiccup affirmed. "We need to round them up before the next storm hits. Toothless and I will find Stormfly; don't you worry."

"And leave me here?" Astrid said with a resolute tone. "I don't think so; I'm going with you."

"I just told you that you need to rest-" Clarke began.

"You said that I need to rest my eyes, and I'll do that," Astrid countered, her head turning slightly in the direction of the point where Tuffnut was currently standing with Ruffnut. "We all know that I'm a better rider blind than some riders- who will remain nameless- that are fully sighted."

"Is she looking at us?" Tuffnut asked his sister.

"She can't see, hence she cannot actually look," the other female Viking observed, saving Clarke from trying to think of a suitably biting comment herself.

"Astrid, there is no way-" Hiccup began.

"You're going out there on your own in that condition," Clarke finished for him as she stepped forward. "You'll go with Hiccup and Toothless, and I'll… wait here in case any of the dragons come back on their own."

"You're waiting here?" Snotlout looked at her in surprise. "We're sending the blind girl out there while you're-"

Astrid cut off that particular protest by walking over to Snotlout and slapping him across the face. Clarke was prepared to bet that the only reason she hadn't punched him was that a slap made it harder to judge if she'd missed her target or had been deliberately trying for a warning blow.

"Thanks," she nodded at Astrid before turning her attention to Snotlout. "As much as I want to help in this search, I've not been here long enough to know the island the way you guys do. If I go out there alone it would be too easy for me to get lost, and leaving Astrid here means someone else needs to stay in case something happens and we need to find the rest of you. Right now, it's best all round if I stay here and Astrid goes with Hiccup to find Stormfly. Whoever finds their dragons can bring them back here, and then… well, we'll work out if it's best for me to start looking or stay here when that happens."

"Good plan," Hiccup nodded at the newest Rider. "We'll… be back as soon as we can, OK?"

"Just leave the blindfold on and you should… well, you won't be fine by the time you get back, but you'll be as good as you can be." Clarke walked over to address Astrid directly.

"I'll… keep that in mind," Astrid nodded. Clarke noticed a brief tension in the other girl's shoulders, but was surprised to find herself leaning over to give the blonde warrior an impulsive hug.

"Just stay strong, OK?" she said, stepping back to grin encouragingly at her new friend. "If the second-craziest genius I ever knew could recover from nearly losing the use of her legs, you can definitely get over this."

"Second craziest?" the other riders looked at Clarke with a mix of surprise and curiosity.

"This guy tried to tame a creature that your peoples' history told him would eat him if he showed it a moment's weakness; he's definitely a different level of crazy brilliant than the girl who just liked to blow stuff up," Clarke continued to grin as she reached over to pat Hiccup's shoulder.

"Blowing stuff up is the mark of a genius?" Ruffnut asked with a brief grin.

"Raven created controlled explosions using available tools in unconventional ways; you're not a genius just because you like blowing things up with your dragons," Clarke said, not wanting to sound like she was encouraging the twins as she sat down and took out one of her books. "You all go and find our dragons; like I said, I'll join the hunt once we have some of them back in the fold."

Judging by the eager grin on Snotlout's face at that comment, Clarke had a feeling she'd just become the subject of a possible 'competition' at least in the young man's mind, but if it kept him out of her hair for a few hours she could cope with that.

"Meatlug!" Fishlegs called out as he walked anxiously through the forest, holding out a rock in his hands as a lure. "Here, girl! Here, Meaty? I've got some nice fresh bauxite!"

Even he wasn't sure if he seriously expected the rock to help, but he was relieved when he heard the sound of something large moving through the nearby bushes.

"Meatlug?" he called out, eagerly tossing the rock away. "Is that you? Don't move, Daddy's on his way!"

When he ran around a cluster of trees, he was disappointed to find that he hadn't found the reassuringly sturdy form of Meatlug, but instead the longer, more temperamental Hookfang.

"Oh, it's you," he said dejectedly, only to wince when Hookfang growled at him in response. "Oh, sorry, Hooky, I didn't mean it like that, it's just that…"

Looking at the large dragon, Fishlegs decided it wasn't worth trying to finish that sentence; nothing he came up with would sound right, so there was no sense making a big thing about it.

"Never mind," he finished his earlier comment. "Let's just get you back to the Edge, right?"

For a moment the dragon appeared calm but dismissive, but Fishlegs assured himself that wasn't a problem; from what he'd seen, Hookfang was always like that…

Then a sudden thunderclap prompted the dragon to jump off the ground and start flapping in the air, skin now blazing with fire as he stared anxiously at Fishlegs.

"I finally know what it's like to be Snotlout…" the large Viking whispered to himself, suddenly appreciating just how scary Hookfang could be when he wasn't laughing at the way the longer dragon threw his rider around during training.

Once he took a moment to be sure that Hookfang wasn't going to set the forest on fire by flying off in terror, Fishlegs took a couple of careful steps forward and raised his hand. "OK, OK, you're upset and scared, but everything is gonna be fine…"

He only realised once he hit the subsequent tree that Hookfang had struck him with his tail in a panic. If this was what Snotlout had to go through to train Hookfang, Fishlegs wasn't sure if he should respect the other Rider for putting up with his dragon or wonder why Snotlout would do this to himself on a regular basis.

"Seriously, what is with that girl?" Snotlout muttered in frustration as he walked through the forest, part of him looking for dragons and the rest enjoying the opportunity to vent in relative privacy. "She just shows up here and gets everyone pretty much throwing doors open for her, and what does she even do with all that opportunity? I mean, OK, maybe we needed a healer, but does that really mean we're just giving the job away to some hot stranger? And all that weird crap in her past… what hasn't she told us yet…?"

Even Snotlout was smart enough to recognise that there were things Clarke hadn't told them about her history, but at the same time he knew that she hadn't done anything to suggest that she couldn't be trusted with their secrets. He just wished that he could feel like…

He knew that it would sound petty and stupid to anyone else, but some part of him still had trouble shaking off that childhood idea that he would become chief once everyone accepted Hiccup was just a weakling who couldn't even hold an axe. No matter how much he might 'officially' protest, Snotlout was fully aware that Hiccup had proven himself ever since he'd first trained Toothless, and he'd long since recognised that he wouldn't actually be very good at being chief anyway, but there was still a part of him that couldn't quite shake off the idea that he was meant to have been the leader…

His thoughts were interrupted when he saw a red-and-orange form in a small clearing in the forest, almost but not quite matching his own dragon's colour scheme.

"Griffin?" Snotlout looked at the Windstriker in surprise, the dragon partially coiled around a tree as it gnawed on a particularly thick branch. "Well, you're no Hookfang, but at least that's one dragon down-"

He jumped back as Griffin stopped chewing on the branch and extended his neck, the dragon's jaws nearly biting down on Snotlout's outstretched hand.

"Hey!" the short Viking yelled indignantly, only to back off when he saw the strange expression on the dragon's face. Like his earlier thoughts on Hiccup, he knew that he wasn't the best at reading dragon emotions, but the way this guy was looking at him right now…

"OK," Snotlout corrected himself, raising his hands in what he hoped the dragon would interpret as a friendly gesture. "I get that you're feeling a bit jumpy right now, but can we talk about-?"

Griffin snapped his jaws at Snotlout again, but the young Viking liked to think that there was a less aggressive motion behind the latest bite. The dragon snorted at him and stomped away, but at least he didn't seem to actually want to attack Snotlout again. For a moment the Viking thought about leaving Griffin and trying to find another dragon, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. It had taken this long to find one dragon, and he had no way of knowing how long it would take to find another, so the best bet was to win this dragon over and get them back to the Edge.

How did Clarke say she got this lummox to listen to her in the first place…?

"Uh, why am I doing this again?" Tuffnut asked as he walked after Ruffnut through the forest, an old shirt wrapped around his head to block his vision of his surroundings.

"We are now living with a blind person, Tuffnut," Ruffnut responded, her own eyes closed in satisfaction for a few moments before she opened them to confirm that she had arrived. "Whatever Clarke manages to do for her, Astrid may be in this state for a while, so we owe it to her to offer our services as 'seeing eye Vikings'."

"Got it," Tuffnut said. "So, wait, who's playing Astrid?"

"Can you see?"

"Not a glimpse," her brother affirmed. "Total darkness over here."

"Then you, my friend, are Astrid," Ruff grinned; there was a gap between them at the moment, but that would just make the final moment all the more satisfying. "Now, come to the sound of my voice. Good. Okay, a little faster. Come on, let's put some hustle into it."

"How's that?" Tuffnut asked, now actually running despite being blind as a bat.

"You're doing great!" Ruff called out, keeping her voice controlled even as everything fell into place for her upcoming prank. "Just a little further!"

As Tuffnut picked up the pace and began to outright run, Ruffnut grinned in satisfaction at the upcoming completion of her prank before she took a step to the side just as her brother was about to reach her. Unaware of where either of them were, Tuffnut literally ran off the edge of the cliff and fell over, prompting a brief yell of shock before it came to a halt.

"Hey!" she called down after him; she knew how much punishment she and her twin could take, but it would be good to know that she hadn't over-estimated his abilities. "You OK down there?"

"Nice work, sis!" Tuff replied. "I think we landed on something."

It was hard to be sure from this distance, but judging by the size of the moving brown thing Tuffnut had landed on, Ruffnut had a feeling that the two of them had just found Meatlug.

Not the best dragon to find, but at least we're one up from where we started; now it's just a case of finding the good ones…