A familiar shriek fills the air as Toothless sends a couple of plasma blasts at a large boulder sitting on the edge of a cliff.
"Great shooting, bud," Hiccup tells him. "Perfect for the catapults."
"Nightshade," Ragnar prompts, smiling when she fires at the side of the cliff and knocks a few more rocks out of the way. "Nicely done, beautiful."
She proudly raises her head with a short trill and shoots Toothless a smug look. The Night Fury only rolls his eyes with a snort, pointedly ignoring Hiccup's stifled laugh.
Meatlug flies by as the rocks fall and manages to catch one in her mouth.
"Nice catch, girl," Fishlegs congratulates. He pats her cheek. "Your athleticism is nothing short of breathtaking."
She gives a happy grumble and sticks her tongue out of her mouth, doing her best to lick his face. Unfortunately, this means the rock promptly falls to the water below.
Ragnar shakes his head in amusement when the two of them look around awkwardly for a moment before they turn and fly back to grab a different piece of stone.
An explosion to the side catches their attention and they all turn to watch as the twins carefully direct Barf and Belch in blasting the side of the cliff face. When they finally finish, they pull back to inspect their work.
"Hm. What do you think?" Ruffnut asks, tapping her chin as she looks it over.
"I think we need to chisel the jawlines more," Tuffnut says with an odd accent. "Make them more in and of our visage."
She thinks for a second then nods. "Agreed."
"What are they doing now?" Ragnar asks with a tired sigh.
"I'm not sure we wanna know," Hiccup says flatly.
"Will you guys do something that's actually important?" Snotlout calls as Hookfang flies over to hover beside them.
Tuffnut scoffs and gestures at their creation. "Uh, what could possibly be more important than this?"
They all follow his gesture to see the carvings they've made of themselves. Admittedly, they're not bad at all but that doesn't mean any of the other Riders will be telling them that.
"I'm sick of this," Snotlout says with a scowl. "If these clowns aren't gonna pull their weight-"
"Hey, boyo!" Ruffnut interrupts. "Never talk to a girl about her weight."
Tuffnut looks at his sister with a chuckle. "No wonder he can't land a girlfriend. Am I right?" He holds his hand out for a high-five but the only response he gets is a laugh from Astrid.
Ragnar leans forward against Nightshade and gives Snotlout a knowing look. "You're just jealous they didn't carve your face into the mountain, aren't you?"
"Shut up, Ragnar," Snotlout mutters, crossing his arms with a scowl and avoiding eye contact.
"Guys, let's get all these catapults loaded before the sun goes down?" Hiccup reminds them, taking a second to send Ragnar an amused look.
Before they get the chance to finish loading the catapults, the loud crack of a breaking tree and the thud of something large moving draws their attention to the nearby forest.
"What was that?" Astrid asks.
"I don't know, but it's crumbling my eyelids," Ruffnut complains as she watches part of her carving fall apart.
The same sound comes again, and they all see the way a few trees shake.
"Okay," Astrid says when Stormfly starts to get anxious. "Easy, Stormfly."
YOU ARE READING
Life on the Edge
FanfictionRagnar still spends most of his time trying to keep stubborn Vikings alive only now he's doing it on dragon back and away from Berk. He's a fully trained healer now and life on Dragon's Edge is definitely going to give him plenty more experience. ...
