Chapter Text
It’s been two years since the king of dragons, and the archipelago has changed for the better. Defenders of the Wing, being one of the best kept secrets, well it would be if there weren't two dragon riders on it causing more chaos on the island.
“Come through!” Dak yelps, flying past Throk who was in the forest teaching some of the new recruits. The older man stood tall, as the rest of the recruits duck as the Swiftwing shoots by.
“Dak!” Throk groans, “This is a training mission, can’t you fly somewhere else?”
“Sorry,” Dak sheepishly says, looking for his twin, “We were trying to do something.”
“We?” Throk sighs, looking around “Where’s your sister.”
“She is hanging around, somewhere.” Dak mutters, his eyes spotting his twin climbing around in one of the taller trees.
“Why can’t the two of you stay in town like you're supposed to?” Throk sighs, “It’s not guarded here.”
“That’s the whole point,” Dak chuckles, “The town’s too protected, what’s life without a little adventure.”
“Do the Queen and King even know you’re here?”
“No,” Dak mutters, “But-”
“Gods give me strength.” Throk sighs, cutting the teen off “The two of you need to get back to town, before they notice you're gone.”
“Boring,” Dak groans, jumping off his dragon “What bad could even happen out here? This is where you train the newest recruits, it can't be that dangerous.”
“Dagur and Mala-”
“Don’t want us out here-” Dak cuts in, “Yes we know, the outer part of the island is dangerous, it’s the most unprotected part of the land, and we’ll die a painful death if we go alone.”
“The end is no part of that.” Throk sighs, looking around, “now where is your sister.”
“Somewhere.” Dak mutters, up above the younger sibling was making her way throughout the trees, looking down on the recruits. Earlier in the day, the two of them found out about the training mission, deciding that they should kindly scare the newer recruits while they were in the woods with Throk.
“Ugh,” Leyla sighs, looking down at the older man before deciding it would be best to cut their losses, it was only Winger and Cutter with them, Burple, Aggro, and Summer didn’t want to get involved with the twin’s prank. On the other hand, Cutter loved the idea, quickly jumping in. The hybrid dragon was nearby in the treeline, blending in somewhat easily, it wasn’t like any of the new recruits were looking for him. Flying down with the hybrid, when close enough to the ground jumping off to land near her brother.
“I hate when you do that,” Throk grumbles, he’d lectured both of them about why they shouldn't jump from tall heights, they listened for a day and then went to do it anyway “Get back to town.”
“Why? You’re training people in the woods right now, what’s so bad about us being out here?” Leyla argues.
“No, no I’m not arguing this again,” Throk sighs, looking at the two, “You both need to get back to town before Dagur turns on the alarm bells, and gets half the soldiers looking for you.”
“Fine…” Dak grumbles, the four of them make their way back to the main part of the island, where the three Rescue Riders were, Dagur and Mala were nearby. Dak makes eye contact with the Berserker, noticing his face “Hopefully they didn’t notice we were gone.”
“Maybe.” Leyla laughs, as they get closer to the two adults.
“Where were you two?” Dagur asks, as a greeting.
“Shoot, they noticed!” Dak yelps, falling into his sister, his next words were just loud enough for the girl to hear, “Lie to them.”
“We were home.” Leyla answers, “I don’t know what you're talking about.”
“Gods.” Dagur groans, the two of them had made this joke multiple times, his age their usual punch line even though he's argued that he isn’t as old as they act like he is.
“I really thought his hearing went out this time.” Dak grumbles, just loud enough for his twin to hear.
“We can only hope.”
“You know I can ground you two right?” Dagur asks.
“Yeah but we all know we won’t listen.” Dak argues, “We only went into the woods, there’s a million soldiers protecting the island and we’re only allowed to be in the town?”
“It’s stupid,” Leyla cuts in, “We’re allowed to fight a dragon hunter, but can’t go into the unprotected part of the island?”
“Exactly,” Dagur assures, “You got it, now get home.”
“Or what?” Dak asks,
“You’ll be stuck here, while we go to the markets tomorrow.” Dagur answers, looking at the twins neither of them fased “And Throk can make sure you won’t leave.”
“I think this is more of a punishment for Throk than us.” Leyla argues, “He’ll be pulling his hair out by the end of it.”
“But fine, we’ll go home.” Dak cuts in, grabbing Leyla’s arm pulling her away towards their home, “With one or two pitstops on the way.”
***
It was nightfall, Dak and Leyla were making their way back into the woods, no dragons this time. Dak found out that Throk would still be training people far into the night, the rulers would be preoccupied as well. Leyla held a lantern lighting their way through the woods.
“Dad and Mala are going to end us, if they find out about this.” Leyla grumbles, looking around, the recruits wouldn’t have any type of light, having to make their way through the forest on their own. Throk would be at the meeting place, in the center of the woods. A fire lighting up the area, Dak and Leyla knew all of the training areas, Dagur and Mala told them to stay out. Especially while people were training, but neither of the twins cared.
“It'll be fine,” Dak assures, “We’ll scare the recruits, and get out of there before anyone even notices us.”
“I wish Cutter was up,” Leyla grumbles, “We’d be there by now.”
“Well, this is better anyways because now they can't see us coming.” Dak argues, seeing the large fire that slowly starts lighting the area, “See we’re almost there.”
“Do we even have a plan for this?” Leyla wonders.
“No we’re just going to scare the new recruits than run before Dad and Mala get home.” Dak answers, “Easy.”
“You say that as if-” Leyla’s comment gets cut off, by rustling from behind them, whipping around to face her twin “Dak you trying to prank me wasn’t part of this.”
“Why do you automatically think it’s me!” Dak accuses, looking to where the noise came from “And for the record it wasn’t me!”
More sounds came from the dark woods behind them, knowing Throk was near it couldn’t be very dangerous, “It’s probably the new recruits.” Leyla whispers to her twin, “They can’t be quiet for the life of them.”
“Which is ironic because they're supposed to be sneaky.” Dak laughs, cut off by a dart hitting a tree beside him, “Uh- what was that?”
“The new recruits being stupid.” Leyla answers, holding the lantern closer to where the dart came from, “And apparently can’t recognize voices in the dark.”
“Hmm,” Dak grumbles, grabbing the dart out of the tree, “So… we’ll continue with the prank?”
“No!” Leyla yelps, “You just got shot at!”
“A dart that would put me to sleep.” Dak argues, “It wouldn’t hurt me.”
“This is stupid.” Leyla mutters, starting to walk away, “You can continue the prank, I’m going home before we get killed by one of these stupid recruits.”
“Boring,” Dak groans, but doesn’t stop her, knowing that would only end up with him getting punched, “Have fun on your- Ley?” looking around not seeing his twin anywhere, “Leyla!”
The teen starts frantically looking around for his sister, up above the new recruits were whispering with the other teen, “You’re going to ruin our training!”
“Your training doesn’t involve kidnapping us.” Leyla argues, “Are you deaf, it was obvious that it was us.”
“You two shouldn’t be in the woods right now!” one of the recruits yell, “This is an important part of our training, you and your brother are ruining it.”
“Techically we were helping you.” Leyla argues, “Now we all know that none of you know how to quiet, or recognize voices. I can easily say this was preventable.”
“It would also be prevented, if you two just did what you’re told.”
“You sound like Dad.” Leyla mutters, “This is the first mission without an adult supervising, and you get caught 10 minutes in, we’ve been tracking you for the past 5 minutes. All that noise you were making didn’t help.”
“Wait- is she right?” Another recruit asks, standing on another branch. In total there was 6 of them in the tree, with Dak searching below them.
“There’s no way!”
“And with that, Dak just found where you are.” Leyla laughs, looking down where Dak already spotted them, “Idoits.”
“Why are you in the tree!” Dak yells up, looking at her.
“These new recruits.” Leyla responds, looking back towards the group of people, “Well this has been fun, I'm leaving.”
“D-don’t tell anyone about this.”
“Why would I?” Leyla asks, “We’re the ones who were sneaking out.”
“Leyla, come on!” Dak yelps, “Dad and Mala are going to be back any minute.”
The two of them rush through the woods towards their house, they lived on the outskirts of the town making it much easier to get back after sneaking into the woods. The two of them were covered in mud and leaves by the time they returned.
“Well that was fun,” Dak mutters, looking around, “and on the bright side Dad and Mala aren’t home yet.”
“If we get cleaned up they’ll never know.” Leyla adds in, looking at their muddy clothes, “We probably shouldn’t have taken the river path,”
“It’s the fastest.” Dak argues.
“If we keep arguing they’ll be back before we can get the mud off.” Leyla explains, shutting her brother up.
“Good point.” Dak mutters, both of them rushing off to their rooms to change. By the time Dagur and Mala returned it was long past midnight, Dak and Leyla were passed out in the living room.
“What is with them and falling asleep here?” Dagur chuckles, “They’re backs are going to start killing them soon.”
“Hmm, they’ll be fine.” Mala replies, tossing a blanket towards the two, “And they’re out here for the fire, because they snuck out… again”
“I know,” Dagur hums, “But they’ll do it either way, so there’s no point in fighting it. Tonight at least. They’re going to be the death of me.”
“More like the death of Throk,” Mala mutters, looking around the room, “You really need to start going through with your threats.”
“Them going on the north side of the island isn’t going to kill them,” Dagur responds, finding one of the darts that the recruits shot at them, “Or well it might, with those recruits, they aren’t th-”
“Brightest,” Mala cuts in, “Yeah Throk’s given me an ear full about it, they shoot at anything and can’t recognize anything,”
“So no better than Snothat?” Dagur wonders, getting elbowed by Mala in response, “Okay, okay maybe Snothat is a little better, slightly but don’t tell him this.”
“Slightly.” Mala mutters, “We’ll work with them, and with the twins and not interrupt their training.”
“They do it because they’re bored,” Dagur sighs, “Which I can’t blame them, it’s been silent ever since Drago.”
“And that’s a good thing.” Mala argues.
“I never said it wasn’t,” Dagur responds, raising his hands in surrender, “It was the fighting that was the fun part.”
“I can slightly agree to that.” Mala mutters, looking around seeing how late it was, “But we can talk about that tomorrow, right now let’s go to sleep preferable before the twins wake and sneak out again.”
“They wouldn’t sneak out again,” Dagur argues, looking at the two sleeping forms "Probably.”
“Hopefully,” Mala cuts in, walking away to their room with Dagur following.