Chapter Text
The drizzle had started not long after they left the Edge. It wasn’t heavy enough to justify turning back, but it was enough to make every mile of the patrol miserable.
The damp chill clung to their clothes, darkened their hair, and slicked over the dragons’ scales, beading between heavy ridges before dripping steadily from their wingtips. It ran in thin rivulets over their leather armour, caught in the tight seams of their flight gear, and slowly worked its cold way through the woollen tunics underneath.
Even the dragons had had enough. Toothless flew with a slow, deliberate beat, letting his tail drag slightly through the air as if he weighed a thousand extra pounds. Every so often, he huffed and threw his head to the side, scattering heavy droplets into the wind. Behind him, Hookfang was not flying so much as drifting, matching the Night Fury’s pace with a heavy drop of his wings and snapping irritably at the empty air, dark smoke puffing uselessly from his nostrils as if he could simply burn the weather away.
Hiccup nudged his visor up a fraction to clear his line of sight, but water still gathered along the leather rim, eventually slipping down his temple in a cold, annoying trickle.
“Brilliant,” Snotlout muttered, swiping a glove across his face to clear his vision. “Another patrol in the rain. Because apparently skipping one single, miserable sweep would cause the entire Edge to tear itself apart.”
Ahead of him, Hiccup didn’t bother to turn around in his saddle, though his voice carried easily back over the rush of the wind. “It’s not rain, Snotlout. It’s just a light drizzle.”
“Oh, well, that changes everything!” Snotlout scowled, shifting uncomfortably as Hookfang snorted agreement beneath him. “My mistake. I’ll just thoroughly enjoy being lightly soaked to the bone, then.”
They flew on in miserable silence, broken only by the steady beat of dragon wings and Snotlout’s increasingly dramatic sighs. As the minutes dragged on, the moisture began to slick the leather reins, making even holding on require a conscious effort.
“Remind me again why we’re the ones doing this?” Snotlout demanded, squeezing his fist to wring a stream of water from his glove.
“Because Astrid and the twins covered yesterday’s patrol, and Fishlegs is checking the supplies before the storm gets here,” Hiccup replied patiently, his eyes still scanning the grey horizon line.
“I hate when it’s our turn,” Snotlout muttered, hunching deeper into his flight jacket. “Couldn’t it have waited? Storm’s due. No one’s going to be stupid enough to be out here.”
Hiccup didn’t answer straight away. His eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, narrowed against the wet wind. After a moment, he hooked two fingers under the front rim of his helmet and lifted it just enough to rake his damp auburn curls back from his face.
One slipped free again almost immediately.
Hiccup sighed and shoved the helmet back down, but the wind plastered the curl along the edge of his open visor.
Snotlout squinted at him. “You know what else is getting out of control?”
Hiccup glanced back despite himself.
“That.” Snotlout pointed vaguely at his head. “The whole tragic wet yak thing you’ve got going on.”
Water found the gap between Hiccup’s helmet and jacket and trickled down the back of his neck, cold enough to make his shoulders hitch.
“My hair?”
“Yes, your hair. It needs cutting.”
“It’s fine.”
As if to illustrate the point, the same wet curl slid lower and stuck across one eye.
“It is actively attacking your face,” Snotlout said dryly.
Toothless gave a soft, amused chirrup.
“Don’t encourage him,” Hiccup muttered, dragging the wet curl out of his eye again.
“Too late,” Snotlout said. “Even the dragon agrees with me. And you need to cut it before we go back to Berk next week. Because your dad is going to take one look at you and decide this is somehow my fault.”
Hiccup didn’t even glance back this time. “I’m not cutting it.”
The answer came too quickly.
Snotlout smirked. “Right. Completely unrelated to Astrid saying it looked good last week.”
Hiccup’s cheeks went bright pink. He quickly reached up and snapped his visor down, sealing his face away from Snotlout’s smug grin. “We are not talking about this.”
“Oh, we definitely are.”
“We are definitely not.”
“Because I’m right?”
“Because we’re on patrol and you need to pay attention.”
“I am paying attention. The weather’s getting worse, you’re shivering, and there’s nothing out here. Can we please go back?”
Hiccup glared back through his streaked visor. “I’m not shivering.”
“You just did.”
“Water went down my neck.”
“So you are cold.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Snotlout stared at him. “You are impossible. Can we please go back now?”
Toothless gave a soft, uncertain rumble beneath him, a heavy vibration that felt like a collective dragon vote to abandon the route.
Hiccup looked forward again, adjusting his grip. “We finish the route first.”
Snotlout threw one hand out. “Of course we do. Because apparently freezing to death builds character. This is a textbook waste of —”
“Viggo’s Dragon Hunters don’t just stop,” Hiccup said.
Snotlout’s mouth stayed open around the rest of the complaint.
Hiccup did not look back this time. Water dripped steadily from the edge of his visor as his gaze stayed on the grey-blurred cliffs.
Snotlout rolled his eyes. Of course Hiccup was worried. Hiccup was always worried. The annoying part was that Hiccup was usually worried for a reason.
Snotlout knew that.
He just did not want to admit it while water was running down his neck and Hookfang was rumbling beneath him like even he wanted to turn back.
By the time they reached the last stretch of the sweep, the drizzle had finally turned into rain. The world ahead looked smeared, cliffs and sea blurring into the same dull grey. Below them, the water heaved in iron-coloured swells, vanishing and reappearing between grey curtains.
Hookfang gave a low, irritated rumble beneath him.
“See?” Snotlout said, patting the Monstrous Nightmare’s neck. “That is the sound of a dragon with sense.”
Hiccup didn’t look back. Toothless flew ahead, a black shape cutting through the rain, his wings beating steady except for the wet snap of membrane in the wind.
“We’ve got one more sweep,” Hiccup called.
“Great. Fantastic. Love one more sweep.” Snotlout dragged a wet sleeve across his face and immediately got more water in his eyes. “Very scenic. Lots of grey. Some extra grey over there. Oh, look — dangerous grey.”
Hiccup did not answer.
That was the problem.
Usually, there was something out here. A fishing boat heading home before the weather turned bad. A flock of dragons moving between islands. Hunter ships prowling for their next catch.
Today, there was nothing. No sails. No wingbeats besides their own. Just rain, sea, and the steady pull of wind trying to shove them off course.
“This is a waste of time.”
Hiccup’s shoulders shifted, but his gaze stayed fixed ahead. “Noted.”
“That’s it? Noted?”
“We finish the sweep.”
“There is nothing to sweep.”
Toothless’s ears flicked back.
Hiccup’s hand moved at once, settling against the dragon’s neck.
Snotlout saw it.
His next complaint died before he could say it.
“Seriously, Hiccup,” he said, quieter now. “There’s no one out here.”
“I know.”
“That was supposed to be reassuring.”
“It’s not.”
Hiccup finally glanced back, rain trailing from the lower edge of his visor.
“Because last month there was always something here. Three Hunter ships. Two trap lines near the western stacks. Wild dragons scared out of their feeding grounds. Then nothing.”
The rain hissed between them.
Hookfang’s wings beat hard, then dipped as a gust shoved across them. Snotlout grabbed the reins tighter, leather slick under his gloves.
“Exactly,” he snapped, though it came out thinner than he wanted. “Nothing. Which means there’s nothing to find and no reason to still be out here when the storm’s about to hit.”
Hiccup’s jaw tightened.
He kept his eyes on the grey stretch ahead. “That’s what I don’t like.”
“What?”
“The Hunters don’t just stop,” he said. “If they pulled back, it was for a reason.”
Ahead, the jagged cliffs of an island loomed closer as the low cloud shifted around their tops.
Snotlout swallowed. “I hate it when you say things like that.”
“I know.”
Toothless’s ears flattened fully.
They flew on.
The rain thickened until the cliffs ahead began to blur at the edges. Hiccup kept Toothless angled along the line of the island, close enough to see the breaks in the rock, but not close enough to lose room if the wind shoved them sideways. His gaze moved from the cliff tops to the water below, then back again.
Wind pressed hard against Toothless’s left wing, forcing him to correct, then shoved at Hookfang a heartbeat later. Snotlout swore under his breath and tightened his grip on the slick reins.
For a while, there was only the weather: rain ticking against leather, wingbeats dragging through wet air, the sea heaving dark beneath them.
But Toothless did not settle.
His ears stayed flat. His shoulders held too still beneath the saddle, every correction sharper than it needed to be.
“I’m telling you,” Snotlout said, though the words came out quieter now, “this is a waste of—”
Toothless growled.
Snotlout felt Hookfang tense beneath him a heartbeat later.
Toothless lowered his head, not toward the cliffs, but toward the water below. His body had gone tight beneath the saddle, every movement controlled as he searched the rain-hazed shoreline.
Hiccup followed the line of his stare, scanning the broken rocks, the narrow strips of beach, the dark places where the cliffs overhung the sea.
Nothing moved.
No sails. No dragons. No men.
Only rain, rock, and water.
Toothless growled again, deeper this time.
Hiccup’s hand tightened against Toothless’s neck. “…What is it?” he murmured.
A gust shoved across the water. The rain slanted hard, needling against Hiccup’s visor, and the low cloud dragged sideways over the cliffs. For a few seconds, the rain-haze thinned over the deep cove below.
Lightning flickered beyond the island.
For half a heartbeat, the cove flashed white.
Something pale showed below.
Canvas.
Then the light vanished, and the rain swallowed it again.
Hiccup went still. “Toothless,” he said softly.
The Night Fury angled lower without needing to be told, wings adjusting against the wind. The cove slipped beneath them, half-hidden again as the rain closed over it.
Hiccup leaned forward, squinting through the streaked visor.
There.
Another flicker of lightning cut across the clouds, brighter this time, and the shape came back in pieces — dark wood, wet canvas, iron fittings, a line too clean to belong to the rocks.
His eyes widened. “Oh, Thor. …Ships.”
“What ships?” Snotlout snapped, peering past him. “I don’t see any—”
Thunder rolled over the water before Snotlout could finish.
Then lightning split the cloud above the island, and the hidden harbour opened beneath them.
Four Hunter ships sat tucked tight against the cliffs, dark hulls swallowed by shadow, masts stripped low, sails furled and lashed down. Rain ran over their decks in silver lines. No lanterns. No raised colours.
But it was not just ships.
In the brief white glare, Hiccup saw the rocky shoreline beneath them: tarps pulled between the rocks, crates stacked beneath them in careful rows, men moving through the rain with rope and supplies from the nearest ship.
Then the lightning died, and the cove fell back into grey.
Hiccup had seen enough.
They were not waiting out the storm.
They were dug in.
It was a base.
Hiccup felt Toothless’s growl deepen beneath him. Behind them, Hookfang stopped rumbling altogether.
Thunder broke over the cliffs, close enough this time for Toothless’s wings to twitch beneath him.
Snotlout’s voice came out smaller than before. “…Oh.”
Hiccup was already pulling Toothless into a turn. “Yeah,” he said grimly. “We need to get back to the Edge.”