Chapter 10

Hiccup and his dragons flew until sunrise as they continued to search for an island to call home. They came across several islands, but they all seemed to be inhabited by other Flights.

"Captain," Hiccup heard a voice say, and had to remind himself that the dragon was addressing him before he turned to answer the Singeing Singer. 

"Yes?" Hiccup asked.

"The Vapor Spark and I spotted another island," the small dragon replied, turning his head to the  right.

Hiccup squinted his eyes towards the indicated direction, and he spotted the small dot that the Singeing Singer was talking about.

"Alright," Hiccup sighed, "let's change course." 

Growling in frustration, Hiccup started to veer towards the new island. They had been searching for hours, and had yet to come across an island that didn't have the very clear scents of another Flight. Toothless had explained to Hiccup that once a Flight claimed an island, no other Flights had right to live there along side them. Unless they wanted to fight for the island, of course.

"Don't worry, Hiccup," Toothless said soothingly. "It's not like every island in the archipelago has a Flight on it." 

Hiccup gave Toothless a skeptical look, "From what I've seen, that doesn't seem to be true." 

"Hey, worse comes to worse, we'll just try to bargain with another Flight to let us live on their island," Toothless said.

"I guess," Hiccup sighed, and they began to soar over the new island. 

It wasn't the biggest island Hiccup had ever seen, but it wasn't too small. As they inspected the land from above, Hiccup spotted a pretty big waterfall descending from halfway up the island's mountain, and then noticed how the waterfall emptied into a large lake at the base of the mountain. When they had finished doing a lap around the island, Hiccup had seen a couple of rivers flowing out of the lake, very green forests, and even a couple of caves scattered around, the most noticeable of which was the one where the waterfall flowed out of the mountain. 

"This looks pretty promising," Hiccup said hopefully. "What do you guys think?"

"Well, there's definitely no other dragons here," Toothless said.

"How do you know that? Just because we haven't seen any dragons doesn't mean they're not here," Hiccup said confusedly.

"It does, actually," the Lava Grubber responded. "If there was another Flight living here, we definitely would have smelled in already." 

Hiccup frowned, "But there could be a couple solitary dragons here, right?"

"Even if there was, it wouldn't matter," Toothless said. "Solitary dragons don't get to claim a whole island. That's why not many dragons choose to go out on their own, they have no defense against other dragons or Flights."

"Oh, okay," Hiccup said, nodding. "Then how about we go down there and explore some on the ground." 

Hiccup started steering them towards the waterfall cave at the top of the mountain, deciding that that was the best place to start. They flew steadily into the mouth of the cave, and Hiccup noted how it was big enough to fit all of them as they flew. Hiccup's eyes sharpened as they flew deeper into the cave, following the path that the water made, and he noticed how the water stream began to narrow but the cave got wider. 

Then they reached the end of the stream, and the cave opened up into a huge cavern with a smooth stone floor and stalactites hanging from the ceiling, as well as multiple large openings that led into different tunnels. Hiccup touched down in the middle of the cave, looking around at the huge space. 

"This is a nice cave," the Blaze Builder remarked. "I could get used to this." 

"Yeah, this place is awesome," the left Vapor Spark head agreed.

"We should definitely live here," the other head said. 

"And there's even water inside the cave," the Lava Grubber said, "we wouldn't have to fly across half the island just to get water like a lot of the other islands we've seen."

"Yeah, this island is incredibly nice," Toothless said.

"There is a faint smell of other dragons," the Sear Spine announced after sniffing around for a moment, "but they seem to have left a couple of weeks ago or so." 

"What do you think, Captain?" the Singeing Singer asked Hiccup.

"Well," he said, looking around the cave in thought, "I suppose it couldn't get much better than this." 

"Does that mean we can stay?" the Lava Grubber asked hopefully.

Hiccup contemplated it for another moment, "Yes, we can stay." 

The dragons roared with excitement, and immediately started scrambling around the cave, claiming their spots and exploring it further. Hiccup smiled at their excitement, but settled for curling down on the ground beneath the lowest hanging stalactites towards the back of the cave, heating up the stone below him with his plasma. 

"I told you it would work out," Toothless said, walking over to Hiccup and lying down next to him.

"Yeah, yeah," Hiccup said. 

A silence overcame them, and they watched contentedly as all of the other dragons claimed their spots around the cave. The Singeing Singer found a small ledge near the cavern entrance that he was curled up on, the Blaze Builder was taking up a large amount of space in the corner to the left of the Singeing Singer, the Vapor Spark heads were whispering mischievously between themselves somewhere to Hiccup's right, and the Lava Grubber and the Sear Spine had found their places on the right side of he cave in front of the Vapor Spark.  

When they had all calmed down, an awkward silence filled the room. 

"So," the Lava Grubber said, "what now?"

It seemed to Hiccup that none of the dragons quite knew what to do with themselves after spending years locked in a cage. 

"Well, getting something to eat would be a start," Hiccup said, and all of the dragons perked up at that. "But first, if you guys are okay with it, it'd be nice to know all of your names. I am seriously not used to calling others by just their species."

The other dragons looked at Hiccup with surprised expressions.

"I kind of forgot that other dragons needed to know my birth name," the Lava Grubber said sheepishly.

"Yeah, I did too," the Sear Spine said.

"I didn't," the Blaze Builder said haughtily.

"Then why didn't you tell the Captain your birth name, huh?" the right Vapor Spark head said, and the other head snickered along with him.

The Blaze Builder snarled, and was about to get to his feet when Hiccup cut in.

"It doesn't matter if you forgot or not," he said quickly, "I would just like to know."

"My birth name is Meatlug," the Lava Grubber replied, and Hiccup nodded, filing the name into his brain.

"My birth name is Stormfly," the Sear Spine said.

"My birth name is Barf," the right Vapor Spark head said.

"And mine is Belch," the left Vapor spark head added.

"My birth name is Sharpshot," the Singeing Singer said.

All the dragons turned to look towards the Blaze Builder, who glared at them all annoyedly.

"Fine," the Blaze Builder humphed, "my birth name is Hookfang." 

"Thank you," Hiccup said. "And if you didn't already know, my birth name is Hiccup."

"My birth name is Toothless," Toothless said proudly, and Hiccup realized that was the first time Toothless had ever gotten to say that

"I'm surprised none of you are Mated," Toothless said after another moment. "I mean, out of all of us, I feel like at least one of us would have been Mated before we got captured or shot down by humans."

"Well, I'm pretty sure all of us were captured around the time that we reached fourteen Winters," Stormfly said, "so I don't think any of us would have had the time to get Mated."

Hiccup looked at them confusedly, "Wait, you were all captured when you had just become adults?"

"Well, of course," Sharpshot said frankly. "No experienced dragons ever get captured. Those first few raids as a newly adult dragon are the most dangerous."

"Wait, are you telling me that humans only ever capture young and inexperienced dragons?" Hiccup asked with sparkling eyes.

"Yeah?" Sharpshot said questioningly.

 A small smile creeped along Hiccup's face, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

"Yeah, that makes sense," he said, pushing the amusement away and redirecting to the task at hand, "So why don't we go get some food? I'm starving." 

The dragons all instantly agreed, and soon Hiccup was leading them out of the cave to fill their very empty stomachs. 

* * *

Soon the Flight was munching on fish on the bank of the lake, except for Meatlug, who was eating rocks. 

"So, what do we do first, Captain?" Stormfly asked Hiccup, her mouth full of fish.

Hiccup contemplated for a moment, not really knowing what his plan was. But if anything about being a blacksmith had taught him anything, it was that if you had no idea where to begin, the first step was to start. 

"I think the first thing we need to do is get a sense of our surroundings, what human villages are near us, what Flights we live by, and if there are any other nests near us," Hiccup announced. "For that, we will need a map of the entire archipelago. But that would probably take months to do all on our own, so we need to get the map from someone else."

Stormfly tilted her head at Hiccup, "How do you reckon we do that?"

Hiccup smiled slightly, "By getting it from someone who has everything."

"Who?" Sharpshot asked curiously.

"A human," Hiccup replied, pausing for a second as the dragons hissed in disgust. "A human who just so happens to have sailed to the very ends of the world. One who is loyal to none but himself and the boat that he sails. Trader Johann." 

The dragons looked confusedly at each other.

"Who's Trader Johann?" Hookfang asked.

"Trader Johann is the most popular trader in all of the archipelago. If anyone has a map of the entire archipelago, it would be him,'" Hiccup explained, but they were still looking at him uneasily.

"Look," Hiccup said, "I get how skeptical you guys are of humans, but seriously, this is the one human you do not have to worry about. All Johann does is annoy you into giving him good trades by talking endlessly about his, 'Mighty and daring adventures across the seven seas', as he so often likes to call them. Johann's only purpose in life is to get good trades, so if we offered him something good, then he wouldn't pass it up. Besides, I doubt he could even raise a dagger on any of us." 

"If you say so, Captain," Belch said skeptically.

"But if this guy tries to kill us, it's on you," Barf added.

Hiccup shrunk under the words, the small amount of confidence he had built up in the past day being smothered.

Toothless smacked the Vapor Spark on both heads with his tail, before turning back to Hiccup.

"Don't listen to them, Hiccup. They don't mean a word they said, do they?" Toothless said pointedly to the Vapor Spark, and both heads quickly agreed under the Moon Sweeper's glare. 

"Thanks, Toothless," Hiccup said quietly, and sat up a little straighter. "Now, last I heard, Johann was going to be at Berk in two days, which means we have just enough time to intercept him before he gets there."

"How do we know that he's not going to sell us out to the humans?" Stormfly asked. 

"I don't," Hiccup admitted, "but knowing Johann, I'm guessing that buying his silence won't be too hard." 

"Okay," Toothless said, "so when should we leave to intercept him?"

"I think that the more important question is: who isn't leaving to intercept him?" Hookfang asked, "We need at least a couple dragons to stay and guard the island."

"Good point, Hookfang," Hiccup said, making Hookfang pump out his chest proudly. "I don't think that we should leave the island without at least two or three dragons watching it, that means at least one experienced fighter guarding the island, and another fast dragon that can quickly alert the dragons who are gone to a threat. The only problem is that we have to figure out which dragons are the best fighters and who are the fastest flyers."

The Vapor Spark heads smirked mischievously.

"Well, that means only one thing, can't it?" Belch said.

"Best dragon competition!" Barf and Belch exclaimed at once.

They all stared at the Vapor Spark in silence.

"You know, that sounded better in my head," Barf whispered to Belch.

"Yeah, it did in mine, too."

"That's actually not a bad idea," Hiccup considered. "The results could also help us adjust our flying formation."

"I like the sound of a competition," Hookfang said, his eyes gleaming.

"Me too, sounds fun," Stormfly agreed. 

"I'm in," Sharpshot said.

"I guess it could be okay," Meatlug said, "I probably won't do very well, but I can try."   

"It isn't about how well you do, Meatlug, it's about what we can do with the results that matter," Hiccup told her.

"I like this plan, but there's one problem," Toothless interjected. "Hiccup, you don't know how to fight." 

Hookfang laughed, "Sure, Toothless, a Moon Sweeper doesn't know how to fight." Hookfang continued to laugh, and Barf and Belch joined in.

"Um, guys," Hiccup said awkwardly, "Toothless is right, I don't know how to fight."

Their laughing ceased, and then they all turned to look at him, dumbfounded. 

"What do you mean, you don't know how to fight?" Hookfang asked incredulously.

"I mean that I really don't," Hiccup said sheepishly. "We left Berk before Toothless could teach me how." 

"Why wasn't fighting the first thing you taught him?!" Stormfly exclaimed to Toothless.

"I don't know, it never came up," Toothless said defensively.

"How can learning how to fight never come up in learning how to be a dragon lessons?!" 

"Guys, guys," Hiccup said, "it doesn't matter. I don't know how to fight, and we can't change the past. But this is the best time for me to learn how to. You can all give me one-on-one fighting lessons, and after everyone has sparred, myself included, we can determine the ranking from there by not just your fighting skills, but your ability to teach others how to fight." Hiccup looked around at the dragons, "Deal?" 

"Sure, why not," Sharpshot said after a moment, and the others agreements soon followed. 

"You know, you seem to be coming up with really smart solution way quicker than most other Leaders," Barf observed.

"Yeah, it's like his brain is ten times more powerful than other dragons," Belch said. 

"Weird isn't it?" 

"Definitely." 

"It doesn't matter how powerful his brain is when he's on the battlefield," Hookfang said sharply. "What matters is that you trust your instincts and never let yourself give up. Are you willing to do that, Captain?"

Hookfang stared Hiccup directly in the eye, and Hiccup heard the other dragons' breathing stop as they watched the stare down. Hiccup understood that this was a challenge, so he met the Blaze Builder's gaze with determination.

Hookfang gave Hiccup a wolffish smile in return, "So how's this competition going to work, Captain?" 

"Glad you asked," Hiccup said, and shifted into his half dragon form, startling the other dragons for a moment until they remembered that Hiccup was Dragonborn.

Hiccup picked up a nearby stick and motioned for the dragons to form a circle around him as he began to draw in the sand. First he drew a long vertical line in the sand, and then drew a pair of dragon wings on one side, and then a dragon claw on the other. On both sides he began to sketch out the faces of all of the dragons in his flight, starting with himself, then Toothless, then Stormfly, then Hookfang, then Barf and Belch, then Sharpshot, and finally Meatlug.

"Okay," Hiccup began, "so this is how it's going to work for fighting: everyone will pair up into groups of two and compete against each other. Since it seems that you guys like to rank by levels of magic, we'll have the dragons with the most similar amounts of magic go first, meaning Meatlug and Sharpshot, Barf and Belch and Hookfang, and Stormfly and Toothless. Once a winner has been declared for each pairing, then the winners of those matches will compete against each other, and the winners of those matches will then compete against each other and so on. we'll have the two competing dragons start hovering over the middle of the island, and then begin to fight when they are signaled to begin. During the match, you can fly anywhere and fight any way you want as long as it is not seriously hurting the other dragon. 

"For the flying competition, we will have each dragon fly through a course throughout the island. I don't know exactly what route this course will take, but I'm fairly certain that we'll start on the mountain, fly down with the waterfall, weave through the trees a bit, then take off in a long straightaway down the ocean until we reach some kind of marker, and then race back, and lastly spiral up the entire mountain until we get back into the cave."

Hiccup looked around at the dragons, "Does that sound reasonable?" 

"Yeah, that sounds pretty good," Stormfly said. "But why will the fighting matches start in the air?" 

"I figured that it was the best way to make sure that all of the matches are fair, and that it also would best simulate the way a dragon confrontation would usually happen," Hiccup explained, and Stormfly nodded.

"How will we determine who wins the match?" Meatlug asked.

"For fighting, it will just be until one of the dragons yield to the other," Hookfang opened his mouth to make a comment, but Hiccup cut him off, "and no, you cannot just be stubborn and not tap out at all." 

Hookfang snorted, and started grumbling something about unfair rules and stupid Dragonborn.

Hiccup rolled his eyes, "And for flying, it will all be timed using a sundial. Whoever has the shortest time wins."

"What's a sundial?" Sharpshot asked. 

Hiccup blinked, and again had to remind himself that the dragons had no idea what most human things were.

"Well, it's this, um," Hiccup said, trying to find the best way to describe it. "Well, it's a stone circle with an angled stone, like, stick thing-y in the middle of it, and it can tell time by judging the sun's position."

The dragons continued to stare at him blankly.

"I don't get it," Belch said.

"Me neither," agreed Barf.

Hiccup sighed, "It doesn't matter, what matters is that it can time us."

"Okay," Toothless said, "so when do we start the competition?"

"We have two days until Trader Johann reaches Berk, which means we have to intercept him somewhere halfway through the second day," Hiccup said. "So we should get the competition done today and be ready to take to the skies tomorrow morning." 

"Alright, then," Sharpshot said excitedly.

"Let the games begin," Hookfang announced.