Chapter Text
When Hiccup first encountered Jack, he was convinced the being was one of the Valkyrie, here to take him away.
A few days earlier, while out exploring some of the islands jutting far to the north of Berk, Hiccup and Toothless had discovered a new species of dragon that seemed to make burrows out of the shifting plates of glaciers.
Hiccup wasn’t even supposed to be on this particular island for long, and had just planned to map out the area before he came back with Fishlegs. He found that doing some prep work beforehand didn’t really stop the life-threatening encounters, but at least made everyone a bit more prepared for them.
What Hiccup had not taken into account, however, was the unpredictable weather.
That, or the Gods just liked tossing him around like Toothless bats around live fish before swallowing them whole. That was his current running theory, anyways. Because the number of kidnappings, interrogations, attempted murders, and illegal underground dragon fighting rings Hiccup just stumbles into completely unprepared is turning slightly suspect.
But anyways, he digresses – unpredictable weather.
The blizzard had blown in which such quickness and ferocity that Hiccup hadn’t even seen the storm clouds forming until they blotted out the sun.
He hadn’t begun to worry, however, until he noticed the wind.
It was a wind that could topple longships and break masts, and was howling such a vicious tune Hiccup was almost afraid it would sweep him up and carry him away. The only reason he was still standing was Toothless’s solid body pressed against his back.
The dragon rumbled something deep and worried in his throat. It was only then that Hiccup noticed he had begun to shiver.
Toothless couldn’t fly them to safety, not in this weather.
Another dragon, perhaps, one adapted to nature’s violence in this way. But Toothless was sleek, build for speed and stealth above brute force.
And while that was a raw sort of power in it’s own right, Hiccup knew from the way the wind was already leaving red marks against his skin that the skies would rip Toothless’s wings clean off.
Hiccup clenched his eyes closed for a moment and placed a hand on Toothless’s neck. He could feel the storm thrumming under his skin, screeching into his veins.
“Alright, bud, let’s find somewhere to ride this out.” He said, trying to push some confidence into his voice.
A determined glint shone in Toothless’s eyes before he grunted and began trugging forward, trying his best to block Hiccup from the worst of the wind.
“Thanks, bud.” Hiccup murmured, keeping one hand on Toothless’s shoulder as they began to wander across the ice.
It didn’t help that neither could see more than a foot in front of them. Or that the whipping snow messed with Toothless’s echolocation. Or that he knew storms like these could last for days.
Or the occasional groaning from the shifting ice underneath them, that didn’t help either.
The groaning was probably the worst part, just because Hiccup knew exactly what it was.
Every Viking who had even an ounce of self-preservation knew not to take walks along the tops of glaciers. They were massive, carving valleys and slicing mountains.
But they were not still.
Massive caverns seen one season would be gone by the next, the tongues on the front of the beasts lapping at the ground in a never-ending ebb and flow. Hiccup liked to think they behaved as the tides.
But this also meant once steady trails could break into cavern networks miles deep, glossed over by a thin sheet of snow.
Gobber always says that the glaciers are vengeful, and don’t like a bunch of Vikings stomping all over it. That those deaths were traps to ward off other venturers.
But Hiccup knew that calling a glacier vengeful was the same as calling volcanoes angry. Like saying that trolls steal your left socks, instead of just admitting you lost them.
And, after the recent camaraderie between Vikings and dragons on Berk, suddenly glaciers were just a bit less dangerous to explore. Even if you decide to land on one, having a travel companion with quick reflexes who can fly really took the edge off those hidden crevasses.
Mostly. Kind of… not really, at the moment.
Because while falling to his death was not as much of an issue now, breaking his leg or becoming stuck in one of these pit falls are increasingly becoming a concern.
But even those start to fade into the back of Hiccup’s mind once a few hours pass, and they are still on a flat sheet of nothingness.
Now, shivers raking Hiccup’s frame, he wonders somewhere in his numb mind if he is going to freeze to death.
After everything he’s been through, it seems like kind of a pathetic way to go.
Hiccup pauses. Well, actually, that’s on brand for him, isn’t it.
Toothless tries to curl a wing around his figure, but the wind harshly jerks it, and he’s forced to slide it back against his body. He wines, looking back at Hiccup.
“D-do you think we could j-just, huddle t-together? L-like that time with A-strid, bud?” He asks, eyes skimming the whirl of snow in front of them, feeling a little far away.
He knew that was a short-term solution to their problem, and that Toothless could not stay curled around him, exposed to the elements himself, for days. But, as it is right now, he doesn’t know if he can physically keep looking for shelter.
Toothless warbles, bumping his nose against Hiccup’s chest, and gods he is warm , before standing up on his hind legs to try and cocoon the boy.
And that’s when Hiccup sees a figure in the snow.
It’s hazy and blurring in and out of the ranging blizzard. But it’s there, not even 10 feet from them.
“Bud.” Hiccup whispers, and Toothless stills, cocking his head, before following Hiccup’s line of sight.
He growls slightly, dropping back down onto all fours and stepping in front of Hiccup.
The figure doesn’t even move, and Hiccup realizes it hasn’t for the whole time they’ve been looking at it. Something in the stillness unnerves him, but he shakes the feeling away in favor of worry.
Worry that there is someone else stuck out here, possibly without help.
Hiccup taps Toothless’s shoulder as he begins to make his way over. Toothless grumbles, ear fins twitching, but eventually follows.
As Hiccup presses closer, he sees it is indeed another person. They’re facing the other way, stock still and staring up at the sky.
Hiccup has long since lost feeling in his fingers and toes, and so clumsily dashes the rest of the way. He calls out to the man, reaching an arm up to tap him on the shoulder.
It’s as the person whips around to face Hiccup, that he realizes a lot of things all at once.
First off, the person isn’t even wearing a coat, just some long sleeve tunic that looks like there’s more stitches holding it together than was originally used to make the thing. They’re also holding a staff, and Hiccup stumbles over the thought that they don’t even have any gloves on.
Second, their hair is white. Not white like Gothi, or like the strands slipping into Stoick’s hair, but a white so pure it almost shines. And as the boy turns around, Hiccup is struck with eyes so blue that some part of him wonders if it’s made from the very ice of this glacier.
However, it’s when the boy stares at him in unadulterated shock, and then the wind stops , that Hiccup’s train of thought seizes to a halt.
And starts to think of the Valkyrie thing.
There’s a bubble now surrounding the three figures. Outside the wind is howling, ripping shards of hardened snow from the ground. But inside? Only a few flakes drift harmlessly to the ground.
Hiccup’s gaze twitches around the invisible barrier, but he keeps getting drawn back in to the being in front of him. A sharp jolt of fear sparks somewhere in his gut, but Hiccup feels far too cold for the spark to catch.
Toothless roughly pushes himself between the two and hisses, flaring his wings. Hiccup stumbles back, tripping against his own numb foot.
“Are, are you a Valkyrie?” Hiccup asks, faint and somewhere far away. It’s the first thing his mind had latched onto, and seems right enough considering his circumstances.
His only thought is that he doesn’t want to leave Toothless here, alone. He wants to ask to make sure Toothless is safe before he goes, but his voice seems to have stopped working as well.
The being had stumbled back when Toothless pushed his way into the situation, and just looks between the two of them bewildered.
“What are you doing out here?” He asks. He seems more confused than Hiccup thinks a Valkyrie should be.
Toothless apparently doesn’t like that answer and curls his tail tighter around Hiccup while purple heat begins to build in the back of his throat.
“Woah, woah, woah.” The being slowly sets his staff down, and raises his hands, eyes darting between the two of them. They narrow on Hiccup, and Toothless barks roughly. He takes a step forward, blocking Hiccup from view.
“Oh, okay, hey, I get it, you’re trying to protect your friend. It’s okay, though, really. I’m not a threat, see?” The being murmurs, hands still up.
“Your friend doesn’t seem to be doing too good.” He continues, voice soft and cantering. “I’m guessing you guys got caught in the storm?”
Toothless doesn’t fully relax, or stop growling, but the fire in his throat dies down and smoke puffs out between his teeth.
Hiccup tries to peek over Toothless’s wings, but ends up leaning on his back, the scales seeping pleasant and distractingly into his clothes.
A wing shifts to cover him, and he just feels so warm . He doesn’t even notice he’s drifting off until his eyes are already closed.
---
Hiccup wakes up groggily, pressed up against a rough scaled hide. He cracks an eye open, frowning when he sees a campfire spurting in front of him.
He doesn’t remember finding shelter and assumed Toothless had rolled him up in his wings until the storm died down enough to continue searching.
Oh, that’s right. They had found that strange man in the storm too, and Hiccup had run over to try and help him and –
Oh .
“Oh hey, you’re awake!”
Hiccup sucks in a sharp breath.
He sits up slowly, feeling more than hearing Toothless’s soft croon as he nudges the side of Hiccup’s face, pulling his wing back from blanketing the Viking.
He places a hand on Toothless’s head, rubbing small circles as his eyes dart around his surroundings.
They’re in a cave. There’s a small fire.
And there, on an outcropping facing the entrance, is the same being from the storm.
He’s sat cross-legged on the thin shelf against the wall, wooden staff lain across his lap. His fingers trace the whorls of the wood, but his eyes are staring right back at him. He sees Hiccup freeze and gives a sheepish smile.
“I’m glad you’re okay, you looked kind of blue when I saw you out there.” He jokes.
There’s a pregnant pause. Hiccup sees the being start to tap his fingers rhythmically against his staff.
Hiccup’s eyes dart from him to the fire.
The being watches where his eyes flicker and hops in, “I thought you could use a fire, even with the dragon. So, I got some sticks! Your friend helped me light it, uh, yeah…”
Hiccup watches as the being trails off before biting his lip, looking off to the side.
“What…” Hiccup begins to ask, and the being’s eyes dart back to him immediately, catching him off guard. He nearly chokes on the words, but they just lean forward, expectant.
“What…happened?” Hiccup finally asks.
He feels off kilter, and not just from the recent near hypothermia experience, although he thinks that probably doesn’t help anything.
Whoever, what ever is sitting before him right now, Hiccup knows they’re not human.
He watches almost transfixed as the man? God? Brightens, something happy and slightly relieved washing over his face at being able to answer a question.
He doesn’t know any of the proper forms for things like this. Odin above he doesn’t even know the most basic rules for things like this. One wrong step and he disrespects the being and then he’s as good as dead, that’s about all he knows. He just doesn’t know what those wrong steps are , and the thought makes his hands start to shake.
Hiccup wishes more than anything that he didn’t tune out Gothi and Gobber as much as he had over the years, because maybe then he would know what to say in this situation.
“Well, I don’t know how you showed up. But I was just watching the blizzard when you appeared out of nowhere and asked if I was a Valkyrie. Which, by the way…” the being pauses for a beat, “no.”
Hiccup just continues staring, and Toothless gives an unimpressed look over his head. The being coughs into his hand, face twitching as he continues.
“Okay, tough crowd. Your dragon friend there didn’t seem to like me much, which was understandable! But, you weren’t in the best of conditions…” he frowns, “so I managed to convince your friend to follow me here to give you some shelter to warm up again.”
Hiccup blinks, connects the dots with his lack of recollection. He turns his head slightly towards Toothless. “Sorry for passing out on you, bud.” He murmurs.
Toothless’s eyes dart from his shaking hands to the being perched against the wall, back to Hiccup. He then proceeds to lean forward and lick half of Hiccup’s face.
“Oh, aw, Toothless , that was not necessary.” Hiccup groans, rubbing his sleeve vigorously against his face. Toothless warbles back, doing a completely false and inaccurate imitation of his voice.
He hears a laugh from up on the outcropping, and the sound echoes around the cave like wind chimes.
Hiccup tenses slightly, but the being doesn’t seem mad, more amused than anything else. And Toothless doesn’t seem uncomfortable at all by their presence…
Some of the anxiety clenching in Hiccup’s chest unwinds itself a bit.
“Thank you for saving me, uhh…” He trails off, just realizing he never asked for the being’s name. Hiccup stiffens at the obvious slip-up, but he just chimes in,
“I’m Jack.”
“Thank you, Jack.” Hiccup says, racking his brain on what he’s supposed to say next. He knows there’s something he’s supposed to be saying here.
“I-uh, I don’t know what I can do to repay you. But-I is there anything you want? Or, I mean-”
Jack sits up a little straighter, holding a hand up placatingly.
“Oh, woah, it’s okay, calm down. I don’t need anything. I’m just happy you’re okay, really.” Jack interjects, voice softening.
Hiccup clicks his mouth shut, and realizes his shoulders are tensed up nearly to his ears. And that he had begun to wave his hands around slightly. He puffs out a breath and forcibly relaxes, glancing to the side. Toothless croons at him in concern.
“Sorry. I know, I know there’s things I’m supposed to say, but I… don’t really know any of them.” He mumbles, ears starting to burn, and he begs to whoever’s listening that he isn’t messing this conversation up beyond repair.
Jack snorts, and Hiccup sends him a weak glare.
A laugh seems to bubble out of Jack at that, and Hiccup watches as he slowly stands before hopping down to the floor.
Jack glances at Toothless when he lands, but the dragon just huffs before laying his head down on his front paws, following the conversation with mild interest.
Hiccup rolls his eyes at Jack’s laughter. “Yeah, yeah, I bet you’re enjoying this aren’t you.” He grumbles, before freezing.
He might not know anything about customs, but even the twins know you’re not supposed to sass off supernatural beings.
Jack, however, shrugs off the comment with a smirk, taking a seat slightly out of range of the campfire light.
“A little bit, I can’t lie.” He says, leaning a cheek against his staff. “What’s your name?”
“Hiccup.” He says, shifting a little in his seat.
“So, Hiccup, what were you doing on a random isolated glacier? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Hiccup straightens. Now that’s a question he knew how to answer, at least.
“Well,” Hiccup says, “there’s this species of dragon that burrows in some of the glacier cracks that I want to study with a friend. I just came here early to map out the area.”
He turns to the fire, rearranging the sticks. “But then this crazy storm rolled in out of nowhere, and Toothless and I kind of got stuck.”
He sees Jack wince out of the corner of his eye and pauses.
He has heard his fair share of stories on vengeful or murderous vaettir. And he knows enough about stalking and playing with your food to feel some of that unease bubble back up again in his gut.
“Was that storm…?” Hiccup starts to ask, tapering off. His heartbeat picks up when Jack pulls his legs to his chin, a guilty look on his face as he avoids Hiccup’s eyes.
“Yeah, that was me.” Jack mumbles, curling himself slowly into a ball. A small voice in the back of Hiccup’s head finds it weird that he didn’t even try to lie. If he’s trying to toy with Hiccup, he isn’t doing a very good job.
Toothless lifts his head at the words, his head fins flicking, picking up on the tension in the air.
Jack looks at Hiccup, and he twitches a bit from the eye contact. This doesn’t feel like the same song and dance he’s heard from those stories, but there’s enough of a similarity that Hiccup feels a tingle underneath his fingertips. His eyes narrow as possible scenarios dart around in his head. Jack cringes and drops his forehead onto his knees.
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t think anyone was around, I swear.” He says, voice low and almost resigned.
It halts Hiccup right in the middle of his spiraling thoughts. It’s not the voice he would associate with someone who’s powerful enough to create blizzards .
It’s not a malicious voice.
Hiccup furrows his brow, poking at the firewood.
There’s an abandoned island beyond the northern borders of the archipelago where vaettir will breathe a Viking’s life from their chests, seeing Viking existence as painful and thus helpfully curing all humankind that passes them of their illness.
The flus sprung from devastating winter were caused by the accidental insulting of a prideful elf, their rage cursing all of humankind to disease in their darkest months.
They are vengeful, prideful, and certainly are not forgiving. It is a lucky life if you never were to meet one.
But none of that seemed right . Jack didn’t seem prideful, or particularly cruel. He looked painfully happy to be having a conversation, no matter how awkward Hiccup was being.
It just…didn’t add up.
But this wasn’t the first time Vikings have been wrong though, has it.
Toothless and him share a look. Hiccup glances back at Jack; there’s a droop to his shoulders, and he’s curled around his knees staring at the wall to his right. His toes are twitching, though, looking a few seconds away from picking him up and bolting all on their own.
Hiccup knows mind games, has been up against one too many men who like to play psychological warfare. Jack is not one of these men. Hiccup squares his jaw.
“Alright.” He says, voice steady. Jack slowly lifts his head up, narrowing his eyes in confusion.
“Alright?”
“Yeah, alright. You’re forgiven, no harm done.” Jack looks at him bewildered and a little frightened. The look is enough for Hiccup to smile something small, a little crooked.
“I’m a Viking, it’ll take more than some frostbite to take me out.” He jokes, knocking his prosthetic.
Jack barks out a surprised laugh, eyes still wide, disbelieving.
Toothless sniffs, his pupils widening out into something a bit more relaxed. He croons at Jack, twitching his face into his trade-mark smile.
Jack takes one look at Toothless and bursts into a fit of laugher, clutching his chest.
And Hiccup just stares: at his snow-white hair and glacier blue eyes that almost seem to glow. At his bell chimes laughs and pale bare feet and seemingly spotless teeth.
And wonders what part of the world has just opened itself to him.
---
They end up having to stay the night in the cave, which Jack explained was just some inlet carved into a mountain top peaking out of the ice.
When Hiccup had asked with hesitation if Jack could possibly stop the storm for them, Jack had leaned forward a little panicked.
“I would if I could, I swear!” He had half shouted, before seeming to reign himself in, looking at the ground while his finger lightly tapped out frost patterns on the rock. Hiccup is so entranced by the delicate display that he almost misses the rest of Jack’s response.
“It’s just. Once I push something that big out there, I can’t really take it back.”
Hiccup supposes that makes sense. Maybe it’s like with dragons and their fire? They can swallow down charges before they sparked. But once the gas was lit, they needed to expel the flames or it would eat them up from the inside.
Except for Zipplebacks, they seemed to have evolved a work around that that issue, at least.
“Zipplebacks? Are those the two-headed ones?” Jack asks, voice betraying enough amusement that Hiccup realizes he had been talking aloud.
He flushes slightly, but mostly just arches an eyebrow at Jack. “Yeah, they’re pretty common. Have you never seen one?”
Jack snorts, “From far away, sure. But dragons typically don’t like me, I’m guessing it has something to do with the whole fire and ice thing.”
Hiccup blinks.
It’s weird, meeting someone who hasn’t had some sort of up-close interaction with dragons, fighting them or otherwise. The way Jack keeps stealing glances back at Toothless makes just a bit more sense now.
“Oh, well, here hang on.” Hiccup says, standing to lean over Toothless, shuffling through their saddlebags. He pulls out his notebook before walking over and sitting down next to Jack.
He pauses when he sees the man stiffen. Jack is giving him a slightly surprised look that Hiccup can’t begin to decipher, and so decides to file it away for later.
For now, he just flips to his notes on Zipplebacks before passing the book over.
“I took lots of notes on them. A couple of my friends ride one, so I have more than enough sketches too.”
When Jack’s hands draw near, whispers of intricate frost patterns begin to bloom over the leather cover. He jerks his hand back slightly, narrowing his eyes in annoyance.
“I can hold it if-“ Hiccup begins. But Jack just takes a deep breath, his eyes slipping closed, and the frost retreats.
He then gently takes hold of the notebook. “Sorry, it’s been a while.” Jack murmurs.
Been a while? Been a while since what, he’s held a book, held paper?
Hiccup looks at him confused, but Jack’s attention is fully on Hiccup’s notes.
His mouth hangs open while he gingerly traces the sketches of Barf and Belch.
Hiccup has seen a lot of responses to his drawings before: back in the day it was mostly exasperation with a healthy mix of apprehension thrown in.
But Hiccup assumes that was less to do with the drawings themselves and more about the inventions he was trying to plan out.
After Toothless, though, it was like suddenly his ideas had a bit more merit. Even his dad would take a deep breath, twitching his face out of his typical scowl before demanding Hiccup explain exactly what he was showing him.
It was better than outright rejection, at least. And he liked to think that in some ways all that loneliness before everything helped him learn how to draw things pretty accurate to life.
It became a regular thing for the riders to lean over Hiccup’s shoulder while he was sketching, slightly curious.
Astrid when she first saw some of Hiccup’s sketches of Stormfly had let out a quiet impressed hum, before asking if she could keep some of them.
Once wind got caught that Hiccup was drawing people’s dragons, the rest of the riders soon came tumbling after him demanding that he draw their dragons too.
The way Jack is tracing his drawings though, is something different.
Something less reserved, more awestruck. It’s a reaction he isn’t used to seeing, at least towards anything he’s done.
Jack turns his head to Hiccup slowly. “These are amazing.” He breaths.
Hiccup stares into his eyes, and he’s close enough to see that Jack’s pupils are shaped like little snowflakes.
He catches himself, turning to cough awkwardly into his hand.
“I uh, I. thank you.” Hiccup says, “Fishlegs and I are working on a second Book of Dragons, so, uh, so I try and take a lot of notes.”
“Yeah, anyone can take notes,” Jack dismisses, flipping the notebook around to where he had thumbed to a page on Gronkles, “but this is art. I mean, I can actually see the textures; how do you even do that?”
Hiccup snorts, and Jack narrows his eyes good-naturedly at him.
“You can shoot frost from your fingers, and you’re impressed with my sketching ability.” Hiccup deadpans, sarcasm dripping from his words.
“First off, I can do a lot more than ‘shoot frost’, so jot that down in your notebook. And second off, you obviously had hit your head on the way over here if you can’t see how amazing these drawings are.” He says, haughtily.
Jack then flips to some drawings of Toothless, and Hiccup can’t help but laugh when he begins gesturing wildly between the now sleeping dragon and the drawings like he’s proving a point.
He goes to swipe the book back, but Jack just dances out of reach, flipping to different pages.
Jack bubbles with laughter at one drawing and turns it towards the cave entrance.
“Hey, Wind! Look, Hiccup drew you in some of these too!”
The pages in question were of some Terrors. Hiccup had noticed that they like to find cliffs with heavy updrafts to jump off, letting the wind hover them in place.
Hiccup arches an eyebrow at the comment, and opens his mouth, only to hear a whining as a gust blew into their inlet, fluttering the pages. Jack’s hair and clothes are ruffled as well, like an embrace, something friendly.
Then, just as soon as it’s there, the wind departs.
Hiccup’s mouth clicks shut. He remembers the bubble Jack had made when they met, sheltering them from the wild gales of the blizzard.
Jack can definitely do more than shoot frost, it seems.
Toothless at some point must have gotten woken up from all the ruckus, because he huffs before pointily flattening his wings over his head, turning over.
Jack flutters about the cave a bit more, turning through Hiccup’s journal with open interest. But soon he seems to settle, like a leaf drifting to the floor.
He and Hiccup chat some more into the late night or early morning. Jack doesn’t seem to mind his mindless ramblings, and even prods subjects he knows will send Hiccup into rants: on different dragon behaviors and potential applications for homelife on Berk.
Hiccup for his part can’t help but note whenever certain questions make Jack freeze. It’s nothing big, just a second of silence before he carefully avoids the answer with some joke that may have worked on someone else; but Hiccup has used that tactic enough times to see straight through it.
It’s simple questions too, about who he was, or if he’s talked to other Vikings before. He keeps these observations to himself too, for now.
Eventually though, even he starts to tire. Jack when he sees this lets out a little, “oh,” like he’d forgotten something. But he easily offers to keep watch while Hiccup sleeps.
Hiccup settles in next to Toothless, who grumbles but wiggles around to accommodate him. He mumbles a warning about Snow Wraiths as he lays his head down.
He can hear a low chuckle at the comment before he drifts off.
---
When Hiccup wakes up early the next morning, Jack is gone.
There are no footprints in the snow stuck to the entrance of the cave. The only hint that anyone was there being the spiraling fractal patterns of ice along the walls.
Hiccup stares at the frost until it melts, before killing the embers left from his fire and leaving. He blinks into the sunlight to find a cloudless sky, blinks again and he’s in the air.
Toothless skims his way towards Berk, black wings leaving behind streaks in the clouds, and all Hiccup can think about is the way the wind bends accommodatingly under them.
It’s like he’s sleepwalking, the way his mind keeps skipping back to last night in a haze. It had to be real, right? Hiccup knew he had his moments, but even his hyperactive brain couldn’t make up some boy made of frost saving him in the middle of a blizzard.
Not boy, he chides himself, nothing as simple as that.
And the question of what exactly Jack is begins to chase itself around in his head, like it had in his dreams. He wasn’t a Valkyrie. He wasn’t human: his skin too pale, his veins too blue, his eyes .
He could make blizzards; he could conjure frost and control the winds. He obviously couldn’t feel the cold, not in the same way Hiccup did. He could be a vaettir, though he didn’t seem attached to the island in particular. He was pretty enough to be one of the elves.
Or he could be a god.
It didn’t help that Jack had seemed to laugh or twist his way out of Hiccup’s questions with a far too amused look for his liking.
He’s still parsing through his conversations last night when he nearly runs straight into Stormfly. Toothless gives him a bark that jerks him out of his thoughts just in time to switch the tailfin and allow him to dodge. From the grumbling he can feel rolling under him, Hiccup has the feeling Toothless had been trying to get his attention for a bit beforehand.
“Hiccup!” Astrid calls out. The other riders are soon flanking him.
“Well, someone’s in a hurry. Did you just ‘forget the time’ again or something?” Snotlout calls, quirking an eyebrow.
“We all thought you died, did something interesting at least happen?” Tuffnut leans over from his saddle.
“Yeah, did you almost die?” Ruffnut adds.
Fishlegs drifts to his left. “We went to the island after you didn’t come back for dinner. But there was this enormous blizzard, none of us could get through; Stoick said we should head back once it cleared up to look for you.”
He must look as frazzled as he feels, because Astrid flies in closer, scrutinizing him.
“You are okay, right?”
“I’m fine. I…I think.”
“You think?” She says, raising her voice at the end. Her eyes narrow.
Hiccup had been looking straight forward the whole time. He turns now, and something in his expression makes Astrid’s eyes widen, her expression going a bit more open with concern.
“I think…I need to talk to Gothi.” He says.
Before Astrid can answer, Toothless dips, racing ahead. Hiccup think he hears some cussing behind him, but his mind is miles away again. His hands twitch where they grip the saddle, and he needs to write everything down before he forgets, before his memory softens the sharpness of the details.
He lands outside Gothi’s hut, and immediately stumbles out of the saddle, pushing his way through the door. He hears Stormfly land behind him, but just scans the room until he finds Gothi by the hearth, giving him a confused look.
He opens his mouth, and nothing comes out. Where does he even begin with something like this?
A floorboard creaks. “Hiccup.” Astrid says, going to place a hand on his shoulder. Gothi holds up her hand and jerks her chin to the far wall by the door, her eyes never leaving his. Astrid hesitates, but nods and steps back again.
Gothi gestures for him to speak.
“I…” Hiccup begins, voice unsure. “I got caught in a blizzard, Gothi, and I met someone. They… Gothi they weren’t human.”
Gothi quirks an eyebrow at him. Hiccup laughs, a little choked sound, and pulls at his hair.
“I feel like I’m going crazy, but I swear they weren’t a figment of my imagination. It was a boy, but he was barefoot standing on ice in the middle of this glacier. And, a-and when I saw him the wind just. It just stopped. And his eyes almost glowed and frost seemed to dance from his fingers. He said his name was Jack. Do you, do you know who he was?”
Hiccup whispers the last part, hands clenching and unclenching around thin air.
Before Gothi can answer, Stoick shouts out his name, throwing open the door. Hiccup whips around and sees Astrid in the corner, her expression frozen, looking at him with something in her eyes that he can’t place. It almost looks like fear. But it’s Astrid .
He turns back to Gothi, only to find that same expression spread over her face too. Stoick picks up on the atmosphere, but before he can ask any questions Gothi shoves him outside and begins writing hastily in the dirt.
Astrid just keeps staring at him, mouth slightly open like she wants to say something but doesn’t have the words. Hiccup can’t exactly blame her.
When Stoick and Gothi come back into the hut, his face is grave, something heavy in his eyes.
“Astrid.” He says, and she jerks to attention. “Go find Gobber and tell him to gather the members for a council meeting. Immediately. Do not repeat whatever you heard here.”
Astrid nods sharply, eyes lingering on Hiccup for another second before leaving the hut.
Stoick and Gothi turn to Hiccup, and they look serious enough to make his palms sweat.
“Son, tell us everything that happened. From the beginning.”
And so, Hiccup does,
And he tells it again, standing before Berk’s council.
He leaves out some parts, details he doesn’t think the stone-faced people before him would appreciate. Like the little snowflakes seemingly etched into Jack’s eyes. Or that he seemed constantly surprised that Hiccup was still talking to him while almost desperately trying to keep the conversation going.
He also doesn’t mention his discussions with Jack.
Partly because he doesn’t want to give his dad a heart attack from the number of times he sassed a potential god, and partly because some small part of him clutches those moments selfishly against his chest.
After telling his tale to Stoick and Gothi, however, he makes sure to emphasize how kind and polite Jack was in his second telling.
After he said everything he knew in Gothi’s hut, she admitted to not knowing anything about what Jack was. The fact that Jack had refused to say who he was himself put shadows under her and Stoick’s eyes.
Hiccup understood that fear. Understood what happens when battle-scarred Vikings are left to fill in the lines.
But having Berk terrified of Jack left a bad taste in his mouth.
Hiccup may have only talked with him for a few hours, but nothing about Jack hinted towards vengeance, or violence.
He caused storms out on isolated islands to avoid hurting people, and felt so guilty about Hiccup that he brought him and Toothless to safety and then watched over them all night.
Hiccup has been called naively hopeful often enough that he just started beating Snoutlout to the punch whenever something goes wrong and they get betrayed, again .
But even after all the times it backfires in his face, Hiccup refuses to stop trusting other people.
His naïve hopefulness is what got him Toothless. What changed Berk.
So, in front of Berk’s council, he talks about Jack saving him from the blizzard. How he made Hiccup a fire and forgave his vocal stumbling. How he kept watch while Hiccup and Toothless slept, demanding nothing in return.
There is a stifling silence after he finishes, the only sound being the great doors creaking in the wind and the spurting of the logs in the fire before them.
“Thank you, Hiccup.” Stoick murmurs, “that will be all.”
Hiccup heaves a sigh and nods, quietly making his leave.
Hours later, which Hiccup spent holed up in his room quickly putting every memory of the encounter onto paper, a meeting of the village is called.
Hiccup stands next to his father as he tells the town of his son’s encounter with the greater being. Murmurings erupt throughout the room, but Stoick’s uncharacteristically quiet voice silences the whispers faster than any shout.
Stoick announces that the being, giving them only a first name – Jack – bears no resemblance to any of Berk’s volumes on the known gods, vaettir, or other beings of their world.
The hall stays silent.
Stoick then says that the council has decided to build a shrine to the being in appeasement for saving one of Berk’s own.
Because of the being’s known characteristics, it will be built on the highest snow-crested peak on the island, and offerings will from now on be made regularly by Berk to hopefully appease the being from taking unwanted actions against the village.
Stoick then turns to Hiccup and appoints him head of the project.
Hiccup, still catching up with his father’s words, can only numbly nod. He wants to argue that Jack isn’t dangerous and doesn’t need appeasing, but shuts his mouth around the words. He has a feeling they will fall on deaf ears, anyways.
Hiccup sits in the forge that night and thinks. Thinks of how enraptured Jack was by field sketches, on his flightiness, how he twitched when Hiccup drew near like he wasn’t used to the proximity.
Thinks of how even if Jack doesn’t need such appeasements from Berk, Hiccup kind of wants to give them anyways.
As a thank you, if nothing else. Maybe as an invitation to meet again.
---
The shrine is finished three weeks later, and Stoick admits to its beauty, even if he still grumbles against the simplicity of the design.
It’s nothing more than a semi-circle carved into the mountain peak. The size is small, with only three Vikings being able to fit inside at any one time.
However, it is bursting with detail.
Twin columns of Snow Wraiths frame the entrance, their frost breaths spewing onto the ceiling to be carved into painstakingly delicate snowflakes drifting on bundles of wind.
A small, raised alter in the middle is made for offerings. And lastly, the walls are left to be shaped into clouds filled with the forms of different dragons, their bodies and wings seeming to ripple into the shrine.
Hiccup had fought stubbornly against Gobber adding in torch posts.
When the blacksmith had finally thrown his hands in the air and demanded to know how exactly then was the shrine going to be properly lit, Hiccup had ordered tiny skylights to be carved in the roof to chase away the shadows from the back end of the build.
When asked on what Lord Jack – as they had begun calling him – would like for offerings, Hiccup had just shrugged helplessly.
Gothi took over from there, and soon the alter was filled with ritual weapons, precious stones, and bundles of Berk’s finest flowers in full bloom.
Hiccup for his part quietly made a new shirt and cloak, both in different shades of blue. Gobber had given him weird looks when he saw Hiccup making clothes slightly too small for him, but Hiccup had just shrugged them off with ease born from practice.
He reinforced the wool and then the stitches with the same process he has for new flight suits, and only after taking them for a test ride on Toothless does he deem the articles of clothing finished.
He had wrapped the clothes in a thick leather package before laying them gently on the offering table.
That had been nearly two weeks ago.
Now, Hiccup has begun the habit of lounging around the entrance to the shrine in his free time, Toothless being a general nuisance and near avalanche hazard in the snow behind him.
He sketches random things: the horizon, Toothless, new ideas of his to be fleshed out. And Jack. There is an increase in sketches of Jack.
Hiccup blames it on him still trying to work Jack out, and tries not to think too much about how he now has a separate notebook just with notes and theories on him.
It’s dusk now, just after dinner. The moon and stars are playing with the last lights of the sunset, dusted in pinks and oranges. It’s just as he’s closing his notebook to head back for the night that he hears a voice.
“Hiccup?”
Hiccup whips his head around to see Jack perched on the top of the shrine, head cocked and a tentative smile on his lips.
“Jack!” Hiccup exclaims, a grin stretching across his face as he hastily stumbles to his feet.
Toothless bounds over while Hiccup gets up, standing on his hind legs against one of the pillars to sniff at Jack’s feet.
Jack laughs and shifts his toes away from the dragon nose, giving Toothless an affectionate head pat.
“You came back! I, uh, I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.” Hiccup admits, shifting his hands around before just crossing them tightly over his chest.
“Ha, yeah!” Jack laughs, hopping to the ground. “The Wind was going crazy trying to tug me in this one direction. I finally just relented and…now I’m here.” Jack trails off, looking at the pillars.
“What is this place?” He asks, curious and soft as he traces one of the Snow Wraith’s wings. Frost patterns dance over the pillar in his wake.
“Well, Berk found out about you saving me. So, we made you this in thanks. It’s your shrine.” Hiccup says softly, apprehension bubbling in his gut.
Jack jerks his head towards Hiccup, eyes wide. “What?”
“It’s a shrine for you, the stuff on the table are offerings.”
Jack’s eyes flicker to the offering table, before being tugged to the walls. He gently steps into the cove, tilting his head up, mouth hanging open.
“Do you…do you like it?” Hiccup asks.
He’s starting to think that maybe he went a bit overboard with the designs. And the number of dragons.
“It’s beautiful…” Jack whispers, floating up to the ceiling to trace the snowflakes there.
He turns to look down at Hiccup, who watches him as he leans up against one of the pillars.
“You didn’t have to do this, though.” Jack says, almost pained, “really, I…I wouldn’t have minded.”
Hiccup can’t help but snort at that, smile turning slightly smug.
“Yeah, I knew that don’t worry.” He says, “the rest of Berk couldn’t really be convinced though. And I eventually thought a shrine isn’t a bad thank you gift. Neither are the offerings.”
“This is definitely not a bad thank you gift. This is like the best thank you gift I’ve ever gotten. Well, I think this is the only thank you gift I’ve ever gotten, but who’s counting.” Jack says, laughing as he drifts down to the floor, eyeing the offerings.
Hiccup raises an eyebrow at the last part, but the look on Jack’s face as he glances over the gifts is just vulnerable enough to have Hiccup swallowing his questions.
“Well, first time for everything, right?” He says instead, grinning when Jack beams at him, pearly white teeth almost reflecting off the moonlight.
Hiccup sits while Toothless lays down wrapped between the two columns as Jack begins thumbing through the items.
He picks up the weapons with more confusion than interest, tapping his fingers along the engravements in the metal, freezing the entire piece. The jewels he tosses between his hands, a crow like joy twinkling over his eyes at how they shine from the starlight.
He edges towards the bundles of flowers, only to shrink back as they freeze and die near instantly under his touch. Hiccup winces at the wilted look on his face, and quickly points him toward the leather pouch sitting next to a ritual axe.
“That one’s from me.”
Jack pauses, sending Hiccup a wide-eyed look, before holding the package gently against his chest, lowering himself down to sit against the table, staff clattering gently next to his knees.
Jack twirls the twine holding the leather together, glancing up at Hiccup. Hiccup for his part just leans forward, expectant.
He really hopes he got the measurements right. And that Jack likes the colors.
He doesn’t know what expression he’s wearing, but it has Jack going from apprehensive to excited, carefully unwrapping the parcel.
When the folded articles lay bare in his hands, Jack’s fingers twitch, and his whole face stutters.
Hiccup doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or not, and so just begins rambling as Jack unfolds the cloak painstakingly slow.
He hopes he isn’t overstepping; he just noticed Jack’s worn-down clothes and didn’t want them to unravel in the middle of another blizzard or anything. He made sure the material was tough and had sewed layers over the stitches to protect against wind damage and made sure the material was padded to help against tearing and-
“You made this?” Jack asks, his voice a quiet rumbling thing.
“Yeah, I did. Do uh, do you…is it alright?” Hiccup responds, tentatively.
Jack puts the cloak on, flipping the hood up over his head. His eyes are glassy, almost unfocused.
“Thank you.” He whispers, voice catching around something wet.
Hiccup’s shoulders relax, and a soft smile peaks out as he watches Jack rub his cheek against his new shirt, eyes closing to the feel.
The moment feels almost too private, like Hiccup’s intruding. So, he turns and pats Toothless’s head while he watches the lights from the homes down below flicker in the slowly deepening darkness.
The silence is peaceful, just little whistles from the high mountain air and Toothless’s deep rumblings to fill the space.
Hiccup finds the light from his house, looking over the town.
“Are you a god?” He asks.
He hears a snort behind him. “No.”
“What are you, then?” Hiccup turns to Jack, quirking an eyebrow.
“Well, what are you?” Jack throws back.
Hiccup can feel some frustration twitching around his face.
“I’m a Viking.” He says, deadpan.
“Okay. How do you know you’re a Viking?” Jack asks, tilting his head with an elf-like grin. That smile looks too similar to the twins for Hiccup’s liking.
“Because I…” Hiccup pauses.
He remembers back when he was younger, when he was still trying so hard to prove that he belonged . He didn’t want to admit it, but it felt like he was something foreign, a stranger to everyone around him.
Gobber would joke that maybe he was a troll that Stoick secretly adopted, a little thing meant for sneaking around houses and squeezing through cracks. He quickly stopped once he saw how it made Hiccup tense up, though.
“Because you…” Jack prods, twirling his hand for Hiccup to continue.
Hiccup huffs, voice turning slightly annoyed to hide the uncertainty. “Because I was born a Viking. My parents are Vikings. I come from an entire village of Vikings.”
Jack hums at his answer, turning to look out at the night sky.
“Well, I was made by the moon.” Jack grabs his staff and gestures out towards the half crescent rising before them. “So, I guess I’m a moon?”
Hiccup reels for a second. “Máni made you?” He asks.
Jack turns to him.
“Yeah.” He says, quiet, reserved. “I woke up in the middle of a lake one day. The moon told me my name, and then nothing else.”
Hiccup sits with the information for a second, before his mind catches up with the conversation. He turns his head to glare at Jack, who raises an amused eyebrow at the look.
“Are you just going to talk me in circles all night?” He huffs, “Are you not allowed to say anything. Is that it?”
“Well, apparently, I’m a moon.” Jack quips.
“We both know that’s not true.” Hiccup can feel a headache forming.
“Why not?”
“You were made , not born .”
“What’s the difference?”
“Oh, for the love of,” Hiccup throws up his hands, “I was born from Vikings, Toothless was born from dragons. I can make a sword, but that doesn’t make the sword a Thor’s forsaken Viking as well. It’s wood and metal and fire mixed together.” He stops, rubbing his temple.
He isn’t even making sense to himself at this point.
Jack stays silent for a moment, and Hiccup eventually heaves out a sigh.
“I’m not sure what I am.” Jack whispers, eyes glued to the shirt still laid between his hands. “I don’t have a village, or others who look like me. I don’t feel like a god. No one sees me, except for up here, and they usually are terrified or try to kill me. Most spirits avoid me…” He trails off, head hanging down until white hair covers his eyes.
Well, now Hiccup just feels guilty.
He purses his lips. “I don’t know if you can tell, but I don’t really look like your typical Viking.” He offers. Jack snorts, peering up at him through his bangs.
Hiccup huffs a dry laugh of his own. “Yeah, I know, hard to believe right? Never really felt like much of a Viking myself…”
He opens and closes his mouth around a few more words, trying to find the right thing to say. He glances at Jack, to find the boy watching him shift around, something small and warm spreading across his face.
“Thanks, Hiccup.”
“No problem.” Hiccup murmurs, frowning slightly. He hadn’t really said anything that helped.
His hand absentmindedly snakes under his vest, and a little “oh!” escapes him when it closes around the bread rolls wrapped up there.
He had forgotten Astrid had given him some of her mother’s baking.
He feels bad about worrying her, but trying to reassure her that he’s fine just turned her worried looks into worried and suspicious looks.
He wants to be annoyed, but also can’t even deny the amount of times he’s hidden when something’s been wrong before, so he had just accepted the buns with a resigned thanks.
Jack tilts his head at the noise, which Hiccup really shouldn’t find as endearing as he does.
“Bun?” He asks, holding one up as he splits the other with Toothless.
Jack leans forward and takes it easy enough, eyes narrowing in concentration. He rotates it with one hand before taking a tentative bite.
Hiccup leans back and watches while picking at his own piece.
Jack’s eyes widen until Hiccup can see the snowflakes of his pupils clearly against the rising moon, sparkling.
“Oh my god.” Jack moans, stuffing the rest of the bun in his mouth.
“Good, right?” Hiccup laughs.
“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.” Jack declares, closing his eyes as he chews.
Hiccup snorts at that, “Well, there’s more where that came from. I’ll tell Astrid’s mom you liked her baking.”
“Tell her I’d do unspeakable acts for another roll.”
“I’m…Yeah, I’m not going to do that.”
Jack doubles over laughing, and Hiccup can’t help but chuckle along.
He looks at the rising moon, laughter dying down. It’s getting late, he should get back before dad starts to worry.
From the way Toothless stands to shake himself off, he agrees. Still, Hiccup hesitates in his goodbye.
Is this it? Will he ever see Jack again? He doesn’t want Jack to disappear, he still has so many questions. And it’s…it’s fun to hang out with him. Hiccup wants to show him his inventions, wants to introduce him to Berk’s dragons, see that unbridled wonder a little more.
He hears Jack clear his throat. “Guess you have to get back, huh?” He asks.
Hiccup sighs as he stands, “Yeah, don’t want to stay out too late and have my dad come looking for me.”
Jack stands too, flipping his staff into the air with his foot and catching it in one smooth motion. His cloak pools over his shoulders, and his new shirt is still clutched tightly in his hand.
“Would it…” Jack starts hesitantly, looking up into Hiccup’s eyes before flicking down to the shirt. “Would it be okay if I came back to visi-”
“Yes!” Hiccup exclaims, perking up. His face then erupts in a blush, and he wrings his hands. “I, uh, I mean, yeah, yeah of course. Come by anytime. Uh, yeah.”
Jack had jerked his head up at Hiccup’s slight outburst, but just gives Hiccup a wide grin, chuckling.
“Okay, then.” He says, drifting up into the air. He flips onto his back, tapping the top of Hiccup’s head with his staff, winking. “See you soon!”
Then a gust of wind twirls him away, and Hiccup watches entranced as Jack slowly dissolves into hundreds of snowflakes – like blowing on a dandelion – until there is nothing more than the crisp wind and a whisper of a laugh against his ears.