The life of a Viking can be difficult, harsh, and stormy. Nobody could make it through alone, and eventually, you're going to have to rely on someone. Unfortunately, we don't always get to pick that someone.

"This is so lame," Snotlout groaned, breaking the focused silence of the formation we had been flying in. "Why are we even out here?" I rolled my eyes as we flew through the grey clouds, indicative of rain.

"Because, this is our first dragon search-and-rescue mission," I retorted, trying to get him to settle down.

"I see a lot of searching, but not much rescuing. Do you even know where we are?" That question stung my pride a little bit.

"My dad said the fishing boat was last seen heading South," I informed him as Reign pulled up beside me. Snotlout made a face like he had been defeated, but quickly wiped it off to throw another insult.

"You don't know what you're talking about. There's nothing down there! I say we go North."

"And if Hiccup said to go North...?" Reign asked him, trying to call Snotlout out for what he was doing. He paused for a moment to try and come up with a response that wouldn't contradict himself.

"Are you trying to mess with my mind? Because nothing gets in here! Nothing!"

"That explains a lot of things..." Reign muttered beside me before focusing back on the job at hand. "What does our map say, Fishlegs?" We turned to look back at the boy as he pulled out the piece of paper. After a few seconds of attempting to read it, the map flew back against his face.

"It's kind of tough to read from this angle."

"You know what, Hiccup? I'm done listening to you! I said North, and North is where I'm going." He yanked on Hookfang's horns to get him to turn around, but the Nightmare remained sturdy in our formation. "Hey! You work for me!" After another yank, Hookfang harshly shot up and turned around.

"Are we just going to let him go?"

"Works for me," Tuffnut scoffed.

I was just going to let him go, fly off North and let him make his way back to Berk when he was unsuccessful. That was, until Reign cleared her throat and shot me a glare that said 'you need to go after him.' That look was one of the few things I couldn't say no to, and I ended up shaking my head.

"Ugh," I groaned. "I'm going, I'm going." I pointed to her. "Lead the others back, we'll get him. Come on, bud." I gently pat Toothless' neck, causing him to turn upward and start us in the opposite direction. Who knows how much time this would set us back, or even if we'd be able to find the fishing boat at this point, but I knew Reign would chew me out if I didn't go back for Snotlout.

The wind was going against our favor, pushing Toothless slightly back with every centimeter we flew. The clouds in the sky were darkening even more as the water below us churned uneasily. Toothless and I finally caught up with Snotlout, but my heart started to pound harder at the sight of a large cyclone right in front of him.

"Wow. Look at the size of that waterspout..." The winds picked up to a dangerous speed, threatening to throw the two of us from our dragons. "That waterspout is way too dangerous!" I called to the rider in front of me.

"That's why I'm flying around it!" he shouted back at me. "Duh!" I shook my head as Snotlout maneuvered his Monstrous Nightmare around the spout.

"You're coming too close!" I warned. "Look out!" A strong stream of wind suddenly got under Hookfang's wings and swept him through the current and closer into the center of the waterspout. If I didn't do something now, he wouldn't make it out of there.

I turned Toothless around and flew against the jet stream, trying my best to get as close as possible to him, but just as I was in range, the wind threw Hookfang back and over my head. Snotlout, however, remained in the strong winds, being tossed about.

"Help me! Help me, Hiccup!" Right in front of my eyes, Snotlout was sucked into the center of the waterspout.

"We're coming!" Without thinking, I pushed Toothless into the center in pursuit of Snotlout. I managed to get close enough to catch him in Toothless' claws. "Toothless, get us out of here!"

But the winds were too strong, and Toothless' artificial tail fin was ripped right from its skeleton, disabling us from flying.

"Oh, no. Snotlout, hang on!" Unable to control where we were going, the three of us were tossed from the control of the waterspout, and down onto an island full of dead trees. I managed to steer him onto land, but as soon as we made impact, everything went black.

"Toothless! Where are you?"

I had woken up on the ground to find my dragon gone, and Snotlout nowhere in sight. We were stuck on an island we didn't know, somewhere we didn't know, with no way of getting home at the moment.

"Snotlout?" From the distance, I heard a low, familiar growling, and quickly turned on my heel to run toward it. Thankfully, Toothless was lying among a clearing of trees. "Toothless! Are you okay?" I rushed to his side and picked his head up. "Come on, talk to me, bud." Slowly, his green eyes opened, looking bleary and confused, and he gently licked my face to show he was okay. "Oh, thank Thor. That wasn't our best landing, was it?" My eyes moved down to his tail to see that it was completely bent out of shape. "Great. Your tail is gone, and the connecting rod is a mess. What are we supposed to do now?"

"You could start by getting me out of this stupid tree!" I looked up to see Snotlout dangling from a branch, high above our heads. Toothless fired a plasma blast to knock him down, and as soon as he hit the ground, I made my way over to him.

"Well, that looked like it hurt." Mouth hanging open, Snotlout barely shook his head. "You sure? Can you talk?"

"Go... suck... rocks..." I backed up toward Toothless.

"Hey, he's back! Lucky us," I deadpanned as Snotlout stood up. "Where's Hookfang?" He looked around and started to call for his dragon.

"Hookfang? Hookfang! Where are you? Hookfang, you get over here right now!"

That's how you treat your dragon with respect...

"Hookfang! Hooky?" He stood over a cliff and looked down at more grey rocks. "Fangster?" There was no roar, no fire, nothing.

"I don't think he's here, Snotlout," I cut in regretfully.

"Obviously. Big headed dragon..."

"Don't worry, we'll find him. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get out of here."

"How? Toothless lost his tail fin, Hookfang isn't here, and we have no idea where we are!" I sighed and shook my head.

"Yup, he's back, alright."

Lightning and thunder threatened to bring a storm to us as Snotlout rifled through my bag for something to eat as I attempted to fasten a makeshift tail fin onto Toothless. As soon as it was lined up, I reached down for the connecting rod I had started to form.

"This could be tougher..." I tried to bend it against one of the rocks, but all that happened was the rod snapped back and painfully struck me in the eye. "Ah!"

"There's nothing to eat in here, Hiccup!" Snotlout whined. "What kind of search-and-rescue mission is this?"

"Well, instead of complaining, why don't you try and help me?"

"I am trying to help you," he declared as he swung around a piece of bread. "I'm trying to teach you about survival. You don't leave home without proper supplies, and at the top of that list is food!"

"Food? Like the food in your hand?" I sighed.

"You mean this day-old biscuit?" I could feel my anger starting to build. "It's even got a spot of mold right-" I snatched the bread from his hands. "Hey!"

"We have bigger problems than a biscuit!" To deal with it, Toothless lunged forward and snatched the bread from my hands, swallowing it down without a second thought.

"He ate my biscuit! What kind of dragon takes a man's biscuit?" I rolled my eyes and made my way back to the rod. "You know, his bad manners are a reflection on you and Reign." I tried to pull it out from the rocks it was wedged between, but it wouldn't budge. "Gimmee that," Snotlout demanded. "You're doing it all wrong. You need to put some muscle in it." He yanked the rod out and held it in front of me. "Oops, I forgot. You can't." He started to bend the rod in the direction of the curve.

"No, no, be careful with that or it might-" The rod snapped in half in his hands.

"You wanted two of them, right?" he asked stupidly.

"Nope. That was our only hope of getting home."

"It's not my fault your dragon has half a tail. Just get another rod!" I balled up my fists and turned around to face him.

"Don't you understand? We have no idea where we are!"

Suddenly, Toothless started growling at the rocks not far from us. For a split second, I was confused, until I heard a faint chorus of voices getting closer to where Snotlout and I were. I started to panic as they got closer. I thought we were the only ones here, and we had no idea whether these people were hostile or not.

"Shh..." We watched as the people passed by through a break in the rocks, then I gestured for Snotlout to follow Toothless and I as we crept closer to where we thought they were going.

"What do you see?" Snotlout hissed.

"Would you be quiet?" I peered through an opening in the rocks I was pressed up against. "For all we know, we could be on a hostile island."

"Don't be such a baby," he scoffed. "How hostile can it be?"

My heart stopped in my chest as one of the people passed by us. His voice, from a distance, had sounded vaguely familiar, not to mention the uniform I had seen before, but now seeing him, it was affirming my worst nightmare.

"Is that hostile enough for you?" We jumped out of the way as one of the Outcasts peered through the hole we had been using to spy on them.

"Nothing there." He wandered away to rejoin his fellow Outcasts.

"I know where we are now..."

"Come on, this way!" Savage ordered the soldiers.

"That was Savage. We're on Outcast Island..." I turned around to face Snotlout and Toothless. "We have to find a way out of here, now."

If we were on Outcast Island, then they had some semblance of a village somewhere, and that hopefully meant they had a blacksmith with a smithy. If we could get there and use it without any of the Outcasts noticing us, we could get out of here without any trouble. But we had to get a move on before Savage and his group of Outcasts returned. I turned on my heel and started to head toward where I knew their settlement was. Lightning flashed above our heads, the storm getting closer.

"Outcast Island? I can't believe this," I sighed. "We've really got to fix this connecting rod and get out of here, otherwise, we are dead men." I turned around to see Snotlout grinning as he picked up something in his other hand and put it in his mouth. "Snotlout, I'm not sure you should be eating those berries."

"Well, I'm not sure you should be telling me what to eat," he snapped back. "Especially after you took my biscuit." Toothless sniffed the berries with great interest, causing Snotlout to shove him away. "Hey, back off! These are mine!"

"Those berries could be poisonous."

"Hey, we're on Outcast Island. We're going into battle; we need our strength: a concept you know nothing about." I turned around and continued my walk toward civilization.

"Battle the Outcasts? Really? The two of us?"

"Abtholutely," he slurred.

Wait... slurred?

I turned around to look at Snotlout in confusion.

"What did you just say?" I looked at him to see his tongue hanging out of his mouth, limp and useless.

"I thaid 'abtholutely,' ath in 'of courth.'" I groaned and shook my head, starting to reach my limit.

"Oh, for the love of- I told you not to eat those berries!"

"Why? What'th wrong?" Clearly, his tongue had gone numb, so he couldn't feel that it was hanging out of his mouth. I pointed to a puddle on the ground so he would look in it and see what was going on. As soon as he did, his hands flew to his face. "Oh, no. I'm hideouth."

"Ugh. Give me my satchel. I may have something that can help with your tongue."

"Thatchel?" I started to panic a little bit.

"No, no, no, no... Do not tell me you just left it there. If someone finds that 'thatchel,'" I mocked, "we're done. It's got the Berk crest on it."

"Relax, we're thafe. Trutht me. No one's gonna find it."

"I hope you're right," I fumed.

I focused on the arena they had with my spyglass, trying to find the smithy. Snotlout and I were finally close to the village, and now all I had to do was find the smithy. I moved the glass from the arena down to the land below it to see a small hut, aglow with a forge fire.

"Wait, wait... there it is! Just need to wait until the blacksmith leaves, then I can sneak in there and make a new rod." I put the spyglass down as Snotlout stood over me.

"How long do I have to leave my tongue in here?" he slurred as he held his tongue in the curative mixture. "It's disguthting. I thaw Toothless thit in it." Toothless cocked his head with curiosity.

"He did, indeed." I tried to hide my laughter. "But, uh- but Night Fury saliva has incredible healing properties," I lied.

"Ugh, it tathes like yak pieth."

"That's just how this is supposed to taste. Keep your tongue in there for a few more minutes."

I sighed and took a seat against a rock. More than anything else, I was concerned about how worried Reign must be. We had been gone for a couple of days, easily, and we were supposed to be back a few hours after they went home. Instead, she had no idea where we were, and no word since I'd turned around to get Snotlout. And, of course, the other thing was that she was the one who had told me to go back and get Snotlout. Even though none of this was her fault, she was probably blaming herself. I just wanted to be back with her, and the others, again.

Clouds were covering the light that would have been coming down, instead replaced my momentary flashes of lightning. I had seen the blacksmith leave his work space, so we had to move now in order for me to be able to make a new connecting rod.

"Hurry," I urged Snotlout. "We don't know how long the blacksmith is going to be gone."

"Betty Boda bought a bit of bitter butter. 'And,' said she, 'this butter's bitter.' If I bought a bit of bitter butter-"

"What... are... you... doing?" I asked, trying my best to control my temper.

"Enjoying my tongue again."

"Well, I'm glad someone is." I shook my head and turned around. Suddenly, a Monstrous Nightmare stepped in front of me, blocking our path.

"Hookfang!" The dragon turned to reveal that in the light, it was different colors from Hookfang. It shot out a blast at Snotlout, knocking him on his back. "Not Hookfang!"

"It's a Monstrous Nightmare!" Toothless jumped in front of the dragon and roared at it, trying to tell the creature to stand down. They circled each other a couple of times, looking ready to pounce, but I couldn't let that happen and risk either dragon getting hurt. "Toothless, stop!" I stepped between the two dragons to calm them down, then glanced at the Nightmare for a moment before closing my eyes and extending my hand out. The Nightmare nuzzled its nose into my palm, and for a second, I thought we were finally in the clear.

That was, until arrows started flying at us, and I looked down the hill to see Outcasts coming in our direction.

"There they are, the Berk intruders!"

"Run!" I turned on my heels and started to run away, as the Monstrous Nightmare fired blasts in their direction to slow the soldiers down. "Circle back around, bud," I ordered Toothless before Snotlout and I broke off, hoping my dragon would be enough of a distraction for them. Sure enough, they thought that Snotlout and I were with Toothless, and they ran off to follow him. We peered over the ledge to watch them run away. "Good, they're gone. Alright, we'll just wait here until Toothless comes back, then head to the blacksmith shop."

"No way!" Snotlout protested. "I'm not going anywhere near that place. You almost got us caught." He turned around to head down the side of the cliff we had climbed up.

"I almost got- the only reason the Outcasts know we're here is because you lost the satchel with the Berk crest on it," I accused.

"Well, who brought the satchel with the Berk crest on it to Outcast Island?"

"Well, I had no idea we were going to Outcast Island!"

"So you're not prepared, and I get blamed?" He huffed. "Hmm." I had finally had enough of Snotlout.

"Fine. If you don't like my ideas, please, please, let me hear one of yours." He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but nothing came out of his mouth. "Precisely as I suspected." I turned around and smiled at Toothless. "There you go. Good job, bud. At least someone's pulling their weight around here."

"Oh! You are so smug!"

"Me?"

"'Hiccup's so smart, Hiccup's so brave. He killed the Red Death. He trained the dragons. He's got the metal leg.'"

"Metal leg? That's what's bothering- that's where you're going? Metal leg?" I stuttered angrily.

"No! It's everything the leg is attached to!"

"Well, deal with it Snotlout, because as of now, I am literally all you've got!"

"Oh! You think I need you? I don't need you!" With a wild gesture, he turned around and started to storm away.

"Well, I don't need you! Go!" I turned back to Toothless. "It's him, right?" He lowered his lids, like he did when he knew that something wasn't right, and for a second I was reminded of Reign. "Come on, let's just get going. I think we're running out of time."

I followed Toothless down the cliff and back toward the smithy, keeping a close eye out for any Outcasts that were lingering. It was most likely that they were trying to bring me to Alvin, but if that happened, I was done for. I looked left and right before ducking between the bars in the doorway to get inside. Toothless was, unfortunately, trapped on the outside.

"Back there, bud. Stay hidden." While Toothless kept watch, I started to dig through weapons and other metal objects to try and find something I could use to make another connecting rod. Thankfully, there was a spare rod of metal sitting at the bottom of a barrel. In a hurry, I grabbed pliers and a hammer and started to pound on it as quickly as possible. It was almost starting to take shape, when the hammer was suddenly ripped from my hands. I quickly snapped my head up to stare into Savage's terrifying eyes.

"And what are we making, Hiccup?" he asked teasingly. I had to think quickly.

"Uh... a gift for... Alvin... to thank him for his hospitality!" I groaned and shook my head. That was a lousy excuse.

"Well, you can thank him in person. Grab him!" The connecting rod flew from my hands as the two soldiers grabbed onto me and dragged me behind Savage. I kicked and protested, trying my best to break free, but they were far stronger than I was, so I didn't stand a chance. I looked back to try and find Toothless, as a last-ditch effort, but all I saw were patches of Gronkle lava.

I was completely out of options.

So there I was, getting dragged along by the Outcasts and Savage up toward where Alvin spent all of his time. We were getting disturbingly close, to the point where I was getting desperate for something to come along that would help get me out of here, but hope was dwindling fast. We were approaching the bridge that led to Alvin, when Savage stopped in his tracks.

"Stoick wouldn't have sent you here alone. Where's the rest of your party?" Despite how angry I was at Snotlout, I wasn't about to give him up.

"Oh, no, no, no. Just me, it's just me. Taking a little vacation, you know? I've heard Outcast Island is beautiful this time of year."

"Alvin will get it out of you. In fact, he'll enjoy it. But trust me, you won't." He turned back around. "Move!"

We were almost there, when an avalanche of rocks suddenly barreled down in front of us, blocking us from getting to Alvin. The Outcasts guarding me tried to run away, but more rocks fell down to trap us in. That time, I had seen the blast that knocked them down, and when I looked up at where it had come from to see my Night Fury dashing along the cliff.

"Toothless!" He fired repeated blasts at the Outcasts to scare them off, then Snotlout slid down the cliff and started hitting the Outcasts with the connecting rod I had been forced to leave behind, knocking all to the ground but the one holding me.

"Hiccup!" He chucked the connecting rod in my direction, hitting the Outcast behind me and allowing me to catch it and knock him out. As soon as we were in the clear, Toothless bounded over to me and started licking my face.

"Ah, good to see you, too. Thank you, bud!" A yell turned my attention away from Toothless, and I looked up just in time to see Savage running at Snotlout. "Snotlout!" Toothless shot a blast at the final Outcast in our way, knocking him back enough to allow us to take a defensive stance. Savage stood up with determination, but as soon as he took one look at us, his expression dropped, and Snotlout sprinted at him, yelling wildly to scare him off.

"You better run!" With Savage out of the way, I crouched down and connected the rod to his new tail fin.

We were finally ready to get out of here.

I mounted Toothless and shifted my foot to open the fin. We shot up into the air and grabbed Snotlout as he started to fall, and took off. Of course, the Outcasts weren't going to let us go without giving it all they had, so they started firing shots at us in hopes of knocking the three of us down, but more boulders fell to scare them off, and we headed back towards home.

"Woo-hoo! Do you realize what we just did?"

"We totally kicked butt, duh!"

"Yeah." At least he'd gotten half of it. "And we kicked butt together! Look, Snotlout, I'm-"

"-hungry, right?" I chuckled and shook my head.

"Yeah, exactly."

"Me, too."

The sun was just starting to rise, when six other figures broke through the clouds in front of us.

The others!

Quickly, I steered Toothless to catch up with them.

"Hiccup!" Reign cried, a note of relief at the end of her words.

"Snotlout!"

"Son, you're safe!"

"We never had a doubt."

"Hello? Other half of the team?" Snotlout was nudged from behind, and turned around to see his dragon waiting there for him. "Hookfang!" He snatched Snotlout up and threw him onto his back. "I'm still mad at you."

I looked over at Reign as she flew Shriek closer to me.

"I'm sorry I made you get stuck with Snotlout," she sighed, shaking her head. "I was so worried about you."

"I figured you would be." She scoffed and shook her head, and I thought she was going to steer Shriek away. Instead, she reached over and quickly pecked my cheek, then focused back on flying home to Berk.

Sometimes the last person you want to rely on is the one you end up being stuck with. Now, being stuck with Snotlout was no picnic. But, who knew how much I could rely on him?