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There is a difference between faith and hope.
Many people are unaware, or wilfully neglect to see it, but there is a difference.
Hiccup would know, after all, he was the Guardian of Faith, not the Guardian of Hope.
The Guardian of Hope was very different.
The first time Hiccup met the Guardian of Hope, it was a private ordeal.
Hiccup was sat on the edge of a cliff, looking out over the sea and reminiscing over old faces of the past when a sound behind him alerted him to the appearance of someone. At first, the forest spirit had assumed it was just Toothless, his companion of years even prior to becoming a spirit. He had nodded mindlessly towards where he could hear the dragon thumping around.
It wasn't until Hiccup heard the slow, loud, rhythmic thuds that he realised this most certainly wasn't Toothless. Toothless, when walking normally, was surprisingly quiet, however, when he was pouncing and playing he never had a set rhythm.
With this knowledge, Hiccup turned around, looking over his shoulder at the stranger that was, apparently, approaching him.
Hiccup came face to face with a giant bunny rabbit. Said bunny rabbit had reached a paw out towards Hiccup, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.
Now, since he's been a Spirit, he's seen many things. Even before he'd been a spirit he'd seen many things. In all his time, between seeing Gods, and Dragons, and Fae, and Spirits that can regrow and replace limbs, Hiccup had never seen any bipedal Bunny Rabbits that were the size of the largest in the Hooligan Clan.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, in all his worldly wisdom, screamed and threw himself backwards off the cliff.
He needn't worry however, he had Faith in Toothless, had Faith that he'd be safely caught.
And so, he was.
Toothless took Hiccup home and Hiccup refused to think of Bipedal Bunnies until the next time he saw one.
It wasn't nearly as long a wait as Hiccup had hoped it would be.
*
The first time Bunnymund met the Guardian of Faith, it was one of the single handedly most terrifying things he'd ever experienced. (At least until Jack threw himself off the sleigh however many years later)
It was Easter, much like it always was whenever Bunny found himself in strange places. He'd been hiding eggs at a beach town, and he'd gone all the way up to the old lighthouse when he'd seen a child sat on the cliff edge. The child didn't look like much. He had brown hair and was in a sheepskin vest the most interesting things about him were the fact that he looked to almost be a young adult, too old to be a believer but had still reacted to the sound of Bunny hopping around with a nod, and that he looked to have a strange prosthetic leg. He wasn't sure what it was made out of but it was green and mimicked the shape of a natural foot.
All in all, it was a list of concerning things all wrapped up into one child sat alone on a cliff, looking over the sea with a sad, far away look in his eyes.
Bunny hoped the kid was alright.
Bunny decided to check on the kid.
And so, slowly, he hopped forward and just as he was about to reach out, alert the kid of how close Bunny now was, Bunny found himself looking the kid in the eye.
So, maybe Bunny had hoped the kid was a believer, could see and hear him and had reacted to Bunny when he'd been looking around the lighthouse. Bunny hadn't thought about how the kid would react, but he imagines he would have hoped it would have been in any other way than this.
Because the kid leapt backwards.
Off the side of the cliff.
At first, Bunny hoped the kid would be okay, then he rushed forwards just to see a flash of black out the corner of his eye and nothing odd about the sea below.
Bunny hoped he hadn't just accidentally killed someone, a child. He wondered whether he could still be a Guardian if he had.
If it had been a different Guardian, Bunny would have been able to have faith in them, would have been able to believe they hadn't done something so heinous.
Bunny wished he could have that level of faith in himself.
If you asked the Guardian of Faith what the difference was, he'd tell you that Faith was in people and things where as Hope was in ideas and dreams.
If you asked the Guardian of Hope what the difference was, he'd tell you that Faith was a choice where as Hope was a necessity.