The Other-worldly Protector

58. Split ways

Hiccup fiddled with the swiss army knife, flicking open its different parts only to snap them closed and repeat the process. With dawn approaching, he was sitting on a chair in the clubhouse back at Dragon's Edge with a troubled frown marring his forehead. Viggo's charred empty sachel was on the table in front of him. Its strap was broken like it had been torn by something sharp. The knife and satchel were found together on a clifftop littered with arrows and the remnants of a fire. Something terrible must have happened.

"Uh, hello... Aren't we going to look for Kiara at least?" Tuffnut said, reminding him that everyone else was in the clubhouse too. Most of them were standing around, though Fishlegs was in a chair and Astrid leaned against the table beside Hiccup.

"Yeah. We have no clue what happened with her back there," she said. "After she left Hiccup anyway."

"Well, we know she dropped her knife," Ruffnut happily pointed out, making Astrid roll her eyes. Hiccup continued to flick the blade open and shut.

"She obviously found her crystal thingie and got out of there," Snotlout said.

"We don't know that!" Tuffnut argued while Astrid frowned and looked away.

Hiccup glanced at him then focussed back on the knife. Flick. Snap.

"Uh, yeah we do," Snotlout told Tuffnut while walking towards him. "The whole time she's been here she's wanted the Grimborns' location. And this mission gave her everything she wanted, including a chance to slip away and leave us!"

"She wouldn't do that!" Ruffnut said with certainty, rooted beside her brother.

"And you know it, mutton man!" Tuffnut prodded Snotlout's chest as he said it. Snotlout knocked his arm to the side.

"She used and abandoned us," Snotlout said, his voice rising. "ACCEPT IT."

"She could have been kidnapped!" Tuffnut shouted back.

"Are you forgetting that her dragon is a SCORCHING WRATH?!" Snotlout shouted louder.

"Are you forgetting the DRAGON ROOT ARROWS?!" Ruffnut practically screamed.

Hiccup stabbed the knife into the table. "SHUT IT! All of you!" he yelled. A silence followed, broken only by the murmuring of dragons as they peered at them from the entrance. Hiccup stood up and moved over to the group of three. "Snoutlout, are you seriously saying that we should not go and look for her?" he asked, looking the Viking in the eye.

"Well, of course not. We should find her," he replied in the most 'well, duh' tone that could possibly exist. "I'm saying she left out of her own free will. Just like Heather. All that has happened is we have split ways. I don't get why you're worried."

Hiccup sighed. He had multiple reasons to not believe Snotlout but couldn't find the energy to argue. Thankfully, Astrid brought some sense into the conversation.

"Snotlout, we know Heather is safe for certain," she said. "For Kiara's and her dragons' sake, we have to make sure they're fine."

Hiccup nodded and so did Snotlout.

"Um, how do we find her?" Fishlegs asked. "I mean, I know Stormfly is a tracker dragon but she needs a good scent trail to start off with."

"And the one from the hunter's island was wiped clean," Hiccup said, "thanks to all that wind." He sighed, again. "I... I don't know where to start." Looking over at the knife pinned to the table, he wondered, with a sinking feeling, if he would ever see her again. Then his gaze roamed to the satchel beside it and an idea sparked. "But I think I know who to start with."