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: This is ultimately more of a transitional chapter, dealing with a few details before getting back to the main plot of the current episode, but I felt it was necessary to set some things up for later; hope you like it anyway.

The Dragon of Wanheda

When Clarke had first heard about 'Loki Day', her immediate private question had been incredulity at the idea that someone was so determined to recreate April Fool's Day in this culture that they'd tied it into a Norse trickster, but without access to a relevant calendar she couldn't be sure how it fitted in with her own culture. The discovery that it was now that day had been a slight surprise, but at this point she wasn't overly concerned about it; the twins might be frustrating, but she had a feeling they wouldn't do anything too dangerous to her, and she already had a plan for making sure they'd leave her alone if she felt it was necessary. As for the rest of the group, Gothi had left on her Gronckle a short while ago, and while nothing had obviously changed for Hiccup and Astrid, they were sitting much closer together than they would have done before when Fishlegs called the group together for a sudden meeting.

"It had two heads, maybe three," Fishlegs explained with a grin of eager desperation. "And it made this weird sound, like nothing I'd ever heard before; it was like a… like…" Finally he seemed to give up on describing it and made a sound that Clarke would tentatively compare to a roar and something sizzling while it was being fried.

"Oh my Thor," Snotlout said enthusiastically. "That's incredible, Fishlegs!"

"I know, right?" Fishlegs grinned.

"Wrong!" Snotlout said firmly. "Not getting me on Loki Day. If it isn't already obvious to you all, I am way smarter than-"

As he walked through the door, the shortest rider was suddenly caught in a snare trap and pulled up by one foot, leaving him dangling upside-down in the middle of the door.

"Obviously," Fishlegs observed as the twins chanted Loki's name in celebration once again. "Much smarter."

"Ha, ha, ha," Snotlout shrugged, apparently taking this abrupt turn of events in his stride. "Fine, you got me. But I still don't believe Fishlegs about that creature in the lagoon."

"Creature in the Edge Lagoon," Tuffnut said (Clarke had to wonder where some of these semi-pop culture references came from) in an exaggerated tone. "Just when you thought it was safe to take a bath in a lagoon…"

"OK," Snotlout shrugged. "Any day now."

"Toothless?" Hiccup glanced over at his dragon. As the Night Fury walked up from his position further back in the hut, Toothless seemed to be slightly amused at the request, but he fired a plasma blast at the rope, dropping Snotlout back to the ground.

"Ah!" Snotlout said, wincing as he got to his feet. "Thanks; much appreciated."

"You can Loki all you want; I know what I saw!" Fishlegs insisted.

"Uh… look," Clarke put in, feeling a need to make some contribution to this meeting when Hiccup looked so content sitting alongside Astrid after their morning talk. "You've all been on this island for months, and I'm fairly sure you've… been to that cove before, right?"

"Yeah, we've been swimming and fishing there for months," Hiccup put in, looking sympathetically at Fishlegs. "It's not that we're saying you're lying, but if there was something to see, wouldn't we have seen it before now?"

"Hiccup's right, Fishlegs," Astrid put in. "Maybe it was just the light coming through the fog? It can play some really weird tricks on you, especially at that hour."

"Sounds more like somebody got Loki'd by the fog," Tuffnut grinned.

"It wasn't the fog, you guys!" Fishlegs protested. "There's something out there, something real!"

"And we're not saying you're lying, but-" Clarke began cautiously.

"Fine!" Fishlegs said, standing up and walking out of the clubhouse. "I'll be back with proof!"

As Meatlug hurried over to join her rider while Fishlegs walked out of the outpost, Clarke could only look awkwardly after the large young man before she looked back at the rest of her new associates.

"Should we… go after him?" she asked.

"No, this is something Fishlegs has to sort out himself," Hiccup said. "If there's nothing in that cove, he needs to satisfy himself on that front, and if there is something… well, I'd prefer to know what we're dealing with before we all go charging into it."

"So we just leave Fish to make his own mistakes and come crawling back when he screws up?" Snotlout grinned. "That works for me."

"I wouldn't-" Hiccup began, before he shook his head in resignation. "Just… leave him to do his own thing, OK?"

"Yeah, I can save on teasing him for later," Snotlout grinned before he walked off once again. The twins just exchanged a shrug with each other before they walked off in another direction, leaving Clarke in the hut with Hiccup and Astrid.

"So…" she looked back at the two leaders of this strange outpost, "anything I can do to help out?"

"Actually…" Hiccup began, before he looked back at Astrid. "I promise, I do want to spend time with you, but I had this idea for the armour, so if I can give Clarke a quick crash course in this she could-?"

"See what I can do to follow it up while you guys enjoy yourselves?" Clarke cut in with a smile at her two friends. "I'll be happy to help out; what's the idea?"

"Well… you remember I was working on making that dragon armour?" Hiccup explained as he walked off towards his workshop, Clarke quickly settling into place beside him. "I noticed that the main problem we had getting the dragons to wear it was that it wasn't comfortable, and then I started thinking about the padding in the seats…"

"The ones we retrieved from Arrow Station?"

"Yeah," Hiccup nodded. "The original leather wouldn't be able to cope with the heat, but it occurred to me that a covering made from dragon scales should be able to cope with that issue."

"Letting us use the armour when it might be an advantage while still keeping the dragons comfortable," Clarke nodded in understanding. "So what can I do?"

"Well… could you see about collecting and organising the scales?"

"Which involves spending more time with the dragons, right?" Clarke grinned at her friend. "I can do that."

"You're sure?" Hiccup looked apologetically at her. "I mean, I couldn't count on the twins and Snotlout to do that even if it wasn't Loki Day, and I'd kind of like to spend time with Astrid…"

"I get it," Clarke smiled reassuringly at him. "Seriously, I felt the same way when…"

She trailed off, briefly lost in the memory of that brief kiss she'd shared with Lexa in the tent, when there still seemed to be so much potential in their alliance…

"Clarke?"

"Sorry… rough memories," she said, deciding to give him at least a semi-truthful response. "Anyway, the point is that I have no problem letting you both have some time to yourself right now, and I'm glad to help; I'll let you know if anything comes up."

Hiccup gave her a last grateful smile before he turned around and walked back towards Astrid, leaving Clarke to pick up a few sturdy-looking bags from a corner of the workshop and head for the dragon pens.

Once she started sorting through the pens, it was easy enough to pick up the first few sets of scales, putting them each in a particular bag to keep each type of dragon scale together with the same species. She wondered at first if she should head back to her hut to collect some from Charlotte, but decided it wasn't worth it. Charlotte wouldn't need armour as she wasn't a 'fighting' dragon, and if anything did come up where she had to fight it wouldn't be hard to adapt Meatlug's armour for her. If Raven was any example of geniuses, Hiccup would probably create a couple of spares rather than rely on one version of this armour, so as long as he didn't throw away the prototypes Charlotte would have options in a pinch.

Once she had collected enough scales for all six dragons, Clarke returned to Hiccup's workshop and looked over Hiccup's notes. Fortunately, he had already prepared some kind of glue or resin that would help stick the scales to the leather, and from what Clarke could translate of the runes they would even respond to heat by becoming firmer rather than melting.

One-up on Daedalus, anyway, Clarke found herself reflecting, recalling some of the mythology her father had told her on the nights when she wanted something more fantastical. The Dragon Sanctuary and anything involving dragons as a whole had always been a favourite, but there were some other stories, ranging from classic myths to more modern tales, that Jake Griffin had always enjoyed sharing with her.

Thinking of Daedalus prompted Clarke to glance over the flight suits that Hiccup had been working on so far, and she had to admit that she was impressed. She didn't entirely get the purpose of the fin design on the back, but considering that she wasn't an engineering expert she'd trust that Hiccup wouldn't add something like that for no reason. She set aside some scales to be used for the suits later on, but for the most part she focused on applying them to the leather padding Hiccup had already prepared for the armour. He still seemed to be working on applying the interior padding properly, but from what Clarke could tell of his notes Hiccup had calculated the amount of material needed to protect the padding and keep the dragons comfortable. She even tested it on Griffin and Charlotte once she'd finished treating the leather- Charlotte was at least close enough to Meatlug in size that the differences wouldn't matter- and was satisfied that she had the size of the material right for each of her dragons.

Even with her dedication to the task at hand, there was only so much Clarke could do when dealing with a job she had no prior training in. Once she'd actually applied all the scales that she had been able to find to the indicated leathers, she thought about doing something with the padding to prepare the armour for later, but quickly satisfied herself that she didn't want to do too much to the available padding in case she made a mistake. Whatever his background, she trusted that Hiccup would have a plan to properly deal with their available resources and finish the armour properly. Satisfied that she had done what she could, Clarke put everything away and returned to her hut, settling down to look over her healer's notes once again, Griffin and Charlotte curled up in the middle of the building as she lay back on her bed.

For all their faults, Clarke had faith that the twins wouldn't do anything to 'attack' her in her own hut, and she equally couldn't see them being big enough gits to do anything to Hiccup and Astrid when the two were still enjoying the early stages of their new relationship. All things being equal, she and her new leaders should get some peace and quiet for the rest of the day, and Snotlout and Fishlegs should be able to cope with whatever tricks the twins might come up with elsewhere.

The peace and quiet of the day was only finally interrupted when Fishlegs came charging back into the camp on Meatlug, yelling about how he'd finally managed to catch whatever it was out in the cove and needed them all to see it for themselves.