"Hold still now Val, gotta wash you up real good." Ash murmured as she scrubbed between the young Razorwhip's scales. Val gave an annoyed growl, but held still as Windshear growled at her to remain silent. "That's it, we're just cleaning out all that nasty gunk you got between your scales. What were you thinking, playing in the mud with the boars?"

Earlier that morning Ash went crazy looking for the little dragon who had disappeared from the stables, only to find her in the boar pit leaping around and letting out little happy chirps as she ran rampant through the mud. The twins found it funny at first, until Astrid reminded them that the boars hadn't been washed in a while and Val was most likely rolling in their germs and in their poop. This resulted in Ash trying to spend her morning washing the mud and the nasty smell off the little dragon, while everyone else did their own thing.

"Next time I'm boarding up your mother's stable to keep you from slipping out between the bars, until you can behave yourself and you're too big to not slip out, you will stay with your mother and behave yourself."

Val turned her neck to narrow her eyes at Ash, something she'd been doing since she was able to properly open them. Ash just gave her a look before continuing to scrub the scales. Just then, all the dragons in the stable began to growl or squawk, shifting in their cages. Ash just ignored it, knowing it was probably one of the riders when she heard footsteps approaching.

"You best change your tunic once you're done, not a good idea to walk around with a soaked one when it's this cold." A familiar voice that definitely did not belong to her friends said gently. Ash dropped Val (who gave a startled shriek and immediately launched herself out of the tub) in surprise and whipped around to see-

"DAGUR! YOU'RE ALIVE!" She practically shrieked and flung herself into the Berserker chief's open arms. "Oh sweet Thor you're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive! Nothing could kill me!" Dagur laughed as he spun her around before gently setting her down. "Guess I don't need to ask if you missed me."

"Of course I missed you! Why wouldn't I miss you?" Ash laughed as she hugged him tightly.

"So, what have you been up to since I disappeared?" Dagur asked as Val crept out from her mother's opened cage covered in soapsuds. "Aww is that Val? She's grown so much!"

"She's bigger than Smudge, and she's gonna get bigger than him." Ash laughs as the soapy dragon glares at her before walking back to the tub and climbs in, giving an annoyed screech. "Oh so now you want me to bathe you. Just minutes ago you were fighting to get out of the tub."

"Giving your mama a hard time aren't you?" Dagur asks with a laugh as he kneels down next to Ash to hand her a brush. "Here, let me help. This should be easier with two."

The two laughed and chatted as they bathed the baby dragon, yelping in alarm when she rapidly shook the soap off herself and soaking them. Windshear had to intervene when her offspring tried to bite Dagur's hand, rushing out of her cage to cuff her on the head.

"Man, I never thought bathing a baby dragon was so hard!" Dagur sighed as a wet Val was released from the tub and bolted for the doors of the stables to dry herself in the sun.

"Try bathing more than one in one day." Ash chuckled and tugged at the front of her damp tunic. "I should change out of this, plus I smell a little."

"Oh come on, it's not that bad." Dagur laughs and Ash makes a face.

"I'm changing, I don't like walking around in wet clothes."

She hurried out of the stables, telling Dagur to meet her in the clubhouse as she hurried back to her hut. She changed out of the tunic and a comfortable pants and slipped on one of those simple knee length dresses with a wide slit in the front her mother had made her to make it easier to ride dragons and quickly tried to brush out her hair. Ash contemplated on maybe trying to braid it partially, as she normally did, but since it was rather warm that day she figured it'd be better to braid the whole thing and then tie it back in a bun.

A while later she arrived at the clubhouse to find Dagur walking around waving a chicken leg while talking. Smudge, who had been brought back to the Edge recently because of an incident regarding Sven's sheep, was following him around with his eyes on the chicken leg.

"If you're not going to eat that, give it to the begging direwolf." She said with a laugh as the pup whined loudly. "So what'd I miss?"

"Dagur says he knows where Viggo is hiding his gold." Astrid responds. "So we're going to check it out."

"Well what are we waiting for, Berk needs it's gold back!" Snotlout exclaims and punches the air with his fist.

"I'm taking all of my dragons with me, I can't trust Val to stay by herself on the base." Ash says casting a frown in the direction of the stables. "Especially since she can now see properly, I don't want a repeat of the boar incident- or that chicken incident."

"Chicken incident?" Dagur asked as he tossed his meal at Smudge, who eagerly dragged it to his corner of the clubhouse to eat. "What has she done this time?"

"You...it's best to not ask." Hiccup replied and the twins shuddered. "Let's just say Val's banned from the twin's hut until her scales become dull."

"Oh and we should also take Smudge with us, can't trust him to be alone here either." Fishlegs adds as the wolf pup looks up from his meal. "Might fall off the platforms, leave a bit of a mess around the place, just to be safe."

"Then let's do this!" Dagur cheered and flung one arm around Ash. "And once we have our gold, we have some more things to do!"

🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹

"...and so I was thinking that after Heather and I come back from searching for Oswald, maybe we could start all over. Like I reintroduce myself to your family, get your dad's permission to court you, stuff like that." Dagur said as he had Shattermaster fly close to Elin so he could talk to Ash.

"Dagur, are you sure Heather wants to go with you?" She asked pointing ahead to where the other riders were. "She seems pretty happy living on the Edge with us, maybe you can stay with us too."

"And where am I gonna sleep, your hut?" Dagur jokes, to which Ash groans. "Oh come on, I see you blushing."

"Because of that I'm gonna make you sleep in the stables."

"I was just joking!"

"You know my father would drag me back to Berk if he knew a boy who wasn't my brothers or the male riders he knows was staying in my room, so don't joke like that. In fact, you get to sleep in Snotlout's hut when this adventure is over."

Dagur made a face but didn't say anything, instead taking the chance to fly up ahead to where his sister and Astrid were flying.

"I swear he needs to be careful with what he says." Ash mutters to herself and Elin growls in his agreement. "Otherwise he's going to get his tongue cut out."

"Alright gang, diamond formation!" She hears Hiccup shout from ahead of the group. Knowing she wouldn't fit properly in their practiced formation, Elin flew under the group, making sure Ash was in the middle of the diamond formation.

As they flew up to get a look at the island, they found nothing but old ruins. Where were the hunters?

"Welp, there's no one here, didn't see that one coming." Snotlout says.

"This is strange, you'd think this whole island would be swarming with hunters." Ash hears Fishlegs say before the gang flies their dragons to the ground. "But look at all this!"

"Are you sure this is where the gold is?" She asks Dagur and he nods.

"I know what I heard, why would I lie about this?"

"Maybe we should look further into the island, Viggo probably buried it somewhere in the woods." Heather suggests pointing ahead, Toothless already walking off from the ruins to sniff something.

"Hey Smudge, sniff it out!" Snotlout yelled, pointing ahead to where Toothless and Hiccup were and looked to the wolf pup. Smudge made a confused whine and cocked his head before running over to Ash to hide behind her legs. "Oh come on! What good is a pet wolf if it can't sniff stuff out!"

"Wolf, not tracking hound." Ash corrects him as she bent and turned over to pet the pup. "It's okay boy, you just need a little training. Come on."

The group walked into the woods, following a set of wagon tracks Hiccup had found that soon come to a dead end.

"The tracks end here?" Fishlegs asks as the group catches up.

"I'm not seeing any gold, is anyone seeing any gold?" Snotlout asks loudly.

"Snotlout, expect the unexpected." Hiccup told him and Dagur grinned.

"You wanna do the honors, or shall I?" The Berserker chief asks.

"I'll do it." Ash offers as she steps forward. She walked towards one of the two large rocks that the tracks pointed to and studied them carefully. She was quite for a while before a grin came to her lips and reached up to yank what was actually a tarp off of whatever it was hiding, to reveal it was actually a large storehouse. "Clever move Viggo, but not enough to stop us."

"Okay step back, Viggo probably boobytrapped this thing." Hiccup said as she took several steps back to the group.

"Fear not, my fearless leader!" Tuffnut shouted. "Ruff and I are the best boobytrap sniffers that have very sniffed out a booby...trap!"

"Uh, alright. Check it for traps but be careful."

The twins immediately leapt off their dragons before throwing themselves around and yelling. So far no traps had seemed to have been sprung until Tuffnut fell to the ground yelling about stun gas and Ruffnut told him she had just passed gas. Hiccup had them clear the way before having Toothless blast the door, only to find out it was reinforced with dragon proof metal.

"Aw come on!" Snotlout groans. "We're so close and now we can't even break it!"

"Here, let Shattermaster try." Dagur suggests as his dragon growled excitedly. "We'll do this Berserker style!"

"You sure he's not going to get hurt?" Ash asks as the Gronckle takes off into the air.

"He'll be fine, he's done this plenty of times!" Dagur assures her. "Fret not princess, this will solve our problems."

The group watched as Shattermaster practically cannonballed himself into the storehouse, causing the whole area to shake like a Catastrophic Quaken had hit the ground. When the dust cleared, the door to the storehouse was gone, and Shattermaster emerged slightly dazed, but still alright.

"It's empty!" Snotlout groaned when they all saw the inside of the storehouse.

"Weird, something should have been inside." Ash says as she and Hiccup approach the entrance of the storehouse. "Viggo must have known we were going to look in here."

"He must have, we all know how he's always a step ahead of us and this is once again one of those times." Hiccup agreed as he looked back to the other riders before looking back to Ash. "So, what do you suggest?"

"It's a big island...maybe we should split into two groups and look around." Ash suggests. "I'll have to keep Dagur in line, I feel like if he's around FIshlegs any longer rambling about taking Heather on a journey one more time he'll probably strangle him."

"Yeah best you keep an eye on him. You're better at that than I am." Hiccup says with a nod before they turned to face the group. "Okay, we're splitting up to find the gold! Dagur, you, Heather and FIshlegs and your dragons go with Ash to check the far side of the island. I'll take the twins, Astrid and Snotlout to scout around this area."

"I see brother Hiccup didn't want us apart." Dagur laughs as he and Heather and Fishlegs walk over to Ash and he slings an arm over her shoulder. "Smart move, we get to spend plenty of time together! Just like that time we spent after you rescued me!"

"I had suggested to him that you stay with me to keep you out of trouble." Ash said rolling her eyes, but she smiled. "Besides, how can I prove to my parents that you are a good person to court if I am able to keep you in line?"

"Good point."

A/N: I'm splitting this into two parts, badass fighting will come in next chapter. Thanks for your patience! Might publish a one shot of a Halloween chapter here too if I have the chance