Chapter Text
Hiccup lived an ordinary life, really. He had a dragon for a best friend, a father who was the greatest chief their village could ask for, a whole island full of rough-and-tumble Vikings who, despite a lifetime of beliefs passed down through generations, had managed to change their ways.
By all accounts, it should have been perfect.
The only thing that didn't quite fit was Hiccup himself. Problem is, he never wanted to be a chief, which was exactly what was expected from him since the moment he was born.
He knew he was supposed to. He knew that one day the responsibility would be his, just as it had been his father's and his grandfather's before him. It weighed him down in a way no one around him could comprehend.
Astrid always said it was the greatest honour a person could receive and that he should be grateful for the privilege of being born into it. It hurt, in a way, because he wasn't and couldn't bring himself to be. The fact that one of the people closest to him couldn't understand only made it worse.
It wasn't her fault though.
If anything, Astrid was everything Berk expected from a future chief. Responsibility came naturally to her in a way it never had to Hiccup. While he spent his days chasing something over the horizon, she always seemed anchored exactly where she was needed most, where she was supposed to be, carrying the needs of the village as effortlessly as she carried an axe.
Maybe that was why things had become easier between them once they stopped trying to be anything other than friends.
Still, she didn't understand.
Or perhaps she understood him perfectly and simply refused to believe that anyone could be given a place in the world and spend so much energy trying to run from it.
He wanted to explore, to chase distant horizons and discover places no one had ever seen. He wanted to disappear for days at a time with no one but Toothless by his side.
So he kept leaving.
Every time his father's expectations became too heavy to carry, Hiccup would disappear. Further than the cliffs of Berk, further than familiar waters, as if distance alone could outrun the future waiting for him at home.
It never quite worked, of course. He knew it. He knew that he couldn’t outrun the inevitable, just as he failed to outrun the feeling of guilt for not living up to his father's expectations yet again.
He could fly as far as he wanted, disappear for days on end, and lose himself in the constant tug-of-war between duty and overwhelming desire to be free of it. But eventually, he always had to come back, because Berk would always be there, waiting.
The sea cared very little for such concerns.
It stretched endlessly around them as they took off this morning, broken only by the scattered islands that dotted the archipelago like small pebbles on the shore. Some were little more than bare rocks jutting out of the water. Others carried patches of stubborn forest clinging to life against the wind. It was all the same from afar. Hiccup had spent years exploring them anyway.
It was difficult to stay trapped inside your own head when there was an entire world waiting to be mapped. Exploring had always been one of the few things capable of pulling him out of his own thoughts.
Today was shaping up to be different though.
Hiccup couldn't quite put his finger on why, but Toothless seemed to feel it too. The moment they crossed Berk's familiar shoreline that morning, he had grown unusually alert, constantly testing the air and keeping his gaze fixed on something in the distance.
There was nothing in that direction. At least, there shouldn't have been. Only a small, uninhabited island rendered largely useless by the Riders a few years ago, a small familiar dot on the map just northwest of Berk, notable only for how utterly unremarkable it was. It was so small that writing its name on the map would take up more space than the island itself, so no one had ever bothered to give it one.
Hiccup felt it then, a crisp chill that didn't belong to the season. Winter was still weeks away, but the wind carried the kind of cold usually reserved for the year's first snowfall.
Toothless let out a low croon and tilted his head toward the island. Hiccup followed his gaze.
"Alright," he said, patting the dragon's neck. "Let's go check it out. Maybe a flock of Snow Wraiths moved in."
Toothless gently dove down and Hiccup felt his breath hitch. The island looked exactly the same as it always had. Which was precisely why the person standing on it was a problem.
As Toothless circled lower, Hiccup found himself squinting at the lone figure near the ridge. At first he'd assumed it was a trick of the light, but the closer they got, the clearer the shape became. By the time Toothless touched down, Hiccup had already ruled out every reasonable explanation. The stranger looked about his age, maybe on the younger side. White hair whipped around his face in the wind, and a crooked wooden staff rested casually against his shoulder. What immediately stood out, however, was the fact that the idiot was barefoot.
Hiccup stared.
The stranger stared back. Then, somehow managing to look entirely nonchalant, he waved.
"Well," Hiccup said as he slid from the saddle. "That's not concerning at all."
The boy grinned. "You’re looking at me."
“You’re barefoot. It’s almost winter”, reasoned Hiccup.
Stranger looked down, as if checking that he was, indeed, barefoot. “Good point. You’re actually looking at me”, he said, grin widening.
Hiccup looked at Toothless, clueless, then at stranger again. “Alright, bud. Looks like I've finally snapped under the pressure of inherited leadership.”
The boy snorted, “That's… oddly specific.”
“You have no idea.”
“No, seriously." The stranger tilted his head. "Why can you see me?"
Hiccup froze. For the first time since landing, he looked at the boy a little more carefully.
"Should I not be able to?"
The grin slipped, replaced by something uncertain. "Usually people can't."
Hiccup frowned. Now that the initial absurdity of the conversation had worn off, he found himself actually looking.
The frost covering the island wasn't natural. Thin veins of ice crept lazily across the rocks nearest to the stranger's feet, spreading and retreating as though unsure where to settle. Snow drifted through the air despite the cloudless sky, circling in slow, aimless spirals.
Growing up on Berk meant growing up on stories. Stories of draugar stalking lonely shorelines, of landvættir watching over islands and mountains, of mysterious sea spirits that lured sailors into storms and winter spirits that brought the first snow of the year.
Most of those stories had turned out to be dragons.
“Sorry, sorry!” suddenly exclaimed stranger. “It’s just that- that doesn’t happen a lot, but to think of it, it’s people up north who usually can see me. You guys must have some tales, or- or certain beliefs about winter spirits, right?”
“We do,” said Hiccup carefully. “Are you… a spirit?”
“Kinda?” the boy gave him a lopsided smile. He shifted his weight, staff digging slightly into the frost-covered ground, movement sending another swirl of snow drifting around him. “Which one of your tales I look like?”
“Which one are you?”
Stranger snorted, “None, I assume”.
Hiccup felt his head start to spin.
Every story he had grown up hearing offered some explanation for strange things lurking in the shadows, spirits wandering the coastline in winter or scary creatures hiding among the cliffs, there had always been a name attached to the mystery, a warning.
Before Hiccup could decide which question to ask next, Toothless suddenly lifted his head, attention snapping away from the stranger and toward the sea. His ears twitched once before he released a low, questioning chirrup that immediately put Hiccup on alert. The sound reached him a moment later.
Far away at first, almost swallowed by the wind, the steady rhythm of dragon wings cut through the air.
The stranger turned as well, white hair dancing in the cold breeze as he followed Hiccup's gaze toward the horizon. There was curiosity there, as though approaching dragons were an entirely ordinary sight and not something to worry about.
A familiar blue shape appeared above the water several moments later. Hiccup couldn't help the exasperated breath that escaped his mouth. There it goes.
Stormfly swept over the island in a wide circle before descending toward the rocky shoreline, scattering loose frost and snow beneath the force of her wings. Astrid was already climbing from the saddle, her expression making it abundantly clear that she had been looking for him for some time.
For a brief moment, Hiccup considered pretending he had simply happened to be there by coincidence. Unfortunately, he had known Astrid long enough to understand exactly how pointless that would be.
“Don't tell me you’re at it again,” Astrid started.
A gust of cold wind swept across the island.
Instinctively, Hiccup glanced toward the patch of frost where the stranger had been standing moments earlier. The spot was now empty.
For a second, his mind refused to process it.
The ridge was exactly as he remembered it before landing on the island, with nothing but frost-covered grass, dark stone and the endless sea stretching beyond. There was no sign that anyone had ever been standing there at all.
"What?" Hiccup asked absently.
Astrid frowned.
Hiccup's eyes remained fixed on the ridge.
The conversation replayed itself in his head with uncomfortable clarity. He certainly wasn't dreaming it. Had he really looked away for that long?
"Hiccup."
He blinked and finally turned back towards Astrid. "What?"
Now she was definitely studying him.
Not the casual sort of glance people gave when they knew he wasn't paying attention, but the focused look Astrid reserved for a problem she hadn't quite figured out yet.
Which, Hiccup suspected, was not a promising sign. That kind of look on Astrid never ended well.
“There's something weird about you,” she said. “Are you-“
“Alright,” he interrupted her. “I'm alright. Nothing that you haven't- seen before”.
“Yeah, that what's scaring me.”
“Nothing to-,” Hiccup started, finally looking at her. He knew why she was here. Because he had to be back, because he couldn’t run from his father forever, and if they send Astrid to get him, it only meant that Stoick's patience was reaching an end. “-worry about. I was heading back anyway, so…”
Without any word, he mounted Toothless and looked at her expectantly.
Astrid's frown deepened, if that was even possible, but she climbed back into Stormfly's saddle without another word and took off.
Toothless leapt into the air moments later, wings beating against the cold wind as they turned toward Berk. Hiccup glanced back only once before following Astrid.
A pair of ice-blue eyes followed them across the sea until they vanished into the horizon entirely.
Hiccup wasn't one to give up on a mystery.
That was how he found himself in the air long before the first rays of sunlight touched Berk's shores, Toothless gliding silently just beneath the pale clouds of the hazy morning.
Stoick was going to be furious.
Hiccup acknowledged that fact somewhere in the back of his mind, filed it neatly alongside several other problems awaiting his return, and proceeded to ignore it completely.
He had more important matters to attend to.
Namely, the winter spirit on a nameless island in the middle of nowhere.
Which wasn't a sentence he had ever expected to think. Yet here they were.
By the time they reached the island, the sun was only beginning to rise above the horizon, painting the ocean in shades of gold and pale silver. The frost covering the grass glittered beneath the morning light, untouched and pristine, as though neither dragons nor spirits had visited the place the previous day.
Hiccup frowned. "See? This is exactly the kind of thing I was worried about."
Toothless glanced at him.
"You saw him too, right?"
The dragon immediately wandered off in search of something more interesting than Hiccup's existential crisis.
"Helpful."
The island was small enough to cross in a matter of minutes, but that didn't stop Hiccup from searching every corner of it anyway. He checked the rocky shoreline first, then the narrow stretch of forest growing near the center. There were no footprints. There was nothing.
The only unusual thing was the frost.
It lingered stubbornly in places untouched by the morning sun, tracing delicate patterns across stones and tree roots. Every time Hiccup thought it had finally ended, he would spot another patch glimmering beneath a bush or tucked between exposed roots.
At some point Toothless emerged from the trees carrying a stick twice his size.
"That's… not helping."
Toothless dropped it at Hiccup's feet.
"I appreciate the enthusiasm, though."
Toothless looked pleased with himself regardless.
A movement above caught Hiccup's attention. He looked up.
A pair of icy blue eyes stared back at him.
The boy sat comfortably on one of the higher branches of the largest pine on the island, balancing with the effortless confidence of someone who had spent a great deal of time in trees. Morning light filtered through the needles above him, catching on white hair that seemed almost silver in the sunrise.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the stranger looked at Toothless.
Toothless looked back. Both tilted their heads at exactly the same angle.
The boy grinned. "Hello again."
"Hi," Hiccup replied, shielding his eyes from the morning sun. "Care to join us down here?"
"Why?" the boy asked, lounging comfortably against the trunk. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for you."
That seemed to catch his attention. The grin softened into something more curious, and for a moment he simply stared down at Hiccup as if weighing those words in his mind.
Then he stepped off the branch.
Hiccup's stomach lurched.
The boy didn't fall. Instead, he drifted lazily toward the ground, carried by a swirl of snow and frost that seemed to materialize from nowhere. His white hair danced in the breeze as he landed lightly on the grass. The frost spread beneath his bare feet like ink across parchment.
Hiccup blinked. Right.
Still doing that.
"You found me then," the boy said, sounding oddly pleased by the fact.
Hiccup folded his arms. "Well, you did disappear immediately after introducing yourself as a winter spirit."
"Kinda."
"There it is again."
The boy looked genuinely confused. "What?"
"'Kinda.' You keep saying it."
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Maybe because that's the closest answer I've got."
"That is an incredibly concerning response."
The boy snorted at that.
Morning sunlight filtered through the branches overhead, scattering pale streaks of gold across the frost-covered clearing. Hiccup found himself studying the stranger again now that he had the chance. Yesterday had been strange enough that most of his attention had gone toward determining whether he was hallucinating or not, but now he had an opportunity to properly look.
The white hair wasn't snow, despite appearances. The clothes looked worn but oddly unfamiliar, lacking any resemblance to the furs and leathers people wore around Berk.
Even standing perfectly still, he seemed to carry winter with him. Frost lingered along the grass nearest to his feet, and every now and then a stray snowflake drifted lazily through the air before vanishing altogether.
Most notably, he still seemed entirely unconcerned by the Night Fury standing beside him.
Toothless, for his part, appeared equally fascinated. The dragon circled him once before approaching with cautious confidence, lowering his head to inspect him more closely. The stranger remained perfectly still, watching with open curiosity as Toothless sniffed at his shoulder, then his staff, then the strange frost that seemed to follow him wherever he went.
"You know," the boy said eventually, reaching out with surprising confidence to scratch beneath Toothless's jaw, "he's a lot smaller up close."
Toothless immediately leaned into the touch.
Hiccup stared.
"You can't say that to a dragon."
The boy glanced up. "Why not?"
"Because now he'll spend the rest of the day trying to prove you wrong."
Almost on cue, Toothless puffed himself up. The stranger laughed. The sound was light and easy, carrying across the clearing with the morning breeze.
Yesterday had been filled with surprise and confusion on both sides. Now, however weird it was, they were simply talking. Which made it increasingly ridiculous that they still didn't know each other's names.
"Hiccup," he said abruptly.
The boy blinked. "What?"
"My name. It's Hiccup."
For a moment the stranger simply stared at him. Then he burst out laughing. A full, helpless laugh that nearly made him lose his grip on the staff. Not even an attempt at a polite one. Hiccup rolled his eyes.
"Oh, that's real?" asked the boy between the giggles. Hiccup sighed.
"Unfortunately."
The boy shook his head, still grinning. "Okay. Fair enough. I'm Jack."
The name suited him somehow. Simple and unremarkable, by a Viking standards for sure. Not at all what Hiccup would have expected from a mysterious winter spirit living on a nameless island. "Just Jack?"
"Jack Frost."
Before he could answer, Toothless nudged Jack's shoulder with his snout, demanding further attention. Jack stumbled half a step before laughing again and scratching beneath the dragon's jaw. The sight was bizarre enough that Hiccup briefly wondered whether he had finally fallen asleep somewhere during the flight.
A winter spirit named Jack Frost was standing in the middle of a frozen clearing making friends with a Night Fury.
Stranger things had happened, probably.
Although, admittedly, none came to mind.
Jack, meanwhile, appeared perfectly content to devote his full attention to Toothless, who had decided that any stranger willing to scratch beneath his jaw was worth keeping around. The dragon let out a pleased trill and immediately leaned harder into the touch.
"Oh, that's cheating."
Jack glanced up. "What?"
"He's going to like you now."
"Sounds like a victory to me."
"It isn't. Now he'll expect this every time."
As if to prove the point, Toothless nudged Jack's shoulder with enough force to nearly send him stumbling. Jack just laughed at that. For someone who apparently spent most of his existence unseen, he looked remarkably comfortable around other people, or perhaps dragons didn't count.
The thought lingered as the three of them slowly drifted away from the clearing and deeper into the island's small patch of forest.
At first, Hiccup had intended to continue his investigation. He had arrived with questions.
What exactly was Jack? How did the whole floating thing work? Why was he carrying winter with him?
The problem was that every answer seemed to generate three additional questions. "Kinda" remained, infuriatingly, Jack's favourite response.
"So you're a spirit."
"Kinda."
"You control ice."
"Kinda."
"You live on this island."
"Well, at the moment. Kinda."
Hiccup stopped walking. Jack continued for another few steps before noticing. "What?"
"You are the least helpful person I've ever met."
"How do you put up with him?" Jack asked Toothless.
Against his better judgement, Hiccup laughed. The expression of triumph on Jack's face suggested that had been his goal all along.
By midday they had somehow circled the entire island. Neither of them could have explained how. One moment they had been talking about dragons, the next Jack was asking increasingly ridiculous questions about Berk, and before Hiccup realized it, hours had slipped away. Most people wanted stories about dragon battles. Jack wanted to know who had named Berk. Why vikings built their houses the way they did. Whether all chiefs had beards. How many sheep Toothless had accidentally terrified.
The answer to the last question had been considerably higher than Hiccup was comfortable admitting.
It felt strangely normal. That was perhaps the strangest thing about the entire situation. Hiccup couldn't remember the last time he'd met someone entirely new and found conversation coming this naturally. It being with some kind of winter spirit didn’t help his case, but then again, stranger things had happened.
The realization that he should probably head back came far later than it should have. The sun had already begun its slow descent toward the horizon, casting long shadows across the island and turning the sea into molten gold. At some point during the afternoon, Hiccup had stopped paying attention to the passing hours altogether.
"I should go," he said reluctantly, adjusting the saddle on Toothless's back.
Jack, who had been absent-mindedly tracing frost patterns across a nearby rock with the end of his staff, glanced up. "Oh." The response was simple enough, but Hiccup caught the brief flicker of disappointment that followed i. For some reason, that made leaving feel slightly more difficult.
"My dad is probably already planning my funeral."
Jack looked genuinely concerned. "That seems excessive."
"You haven't met my father."
That earned a laugh.
For a moment he hesitated, one foot already in the stirrup. "We'll probably be back."
The words left his mouth before he had fully considered them. Jack's eyebrows rose.
"We?"
Hiccup immediately regretted phrasing it that way. "Me. Toothless is just sort of included in the package."
Jack's grin returned. "Right. The package."
A comfortable silence settled between them for a moment. Then Hiccup mounted Toothless, gave one final nod, and the Night Fury launched into the air. The island shrank quickly beneath them. Hiccup glanced back once. Jack was still standing exactly where they had left him, one hand resting on his staff as the evening wind tugged at his white hair. Even from a distance, the frost lingering around him stood out against the darkening grass.
The sight remained with Hiccup long after the island itself disappeared beyond the horizon.
The flight back to Berk felt shorter than usual. Maybe because his thoughts were occupied by something other than responsibilities for once. No expectations or discussions about leadership or endless reminders about the future waiting for him.
Just a strange day spent wandering a nameless island with a winter spirit named Jack.
By the time Berk's familiar silhouette emerged from the evening haze, Hiccup realized something that caught him off guard. For several hours, he hadn't been Stoick's son or Berk's future chief. He hadn't even been the dragon rider everyone expected him to be. He had simply been Hiccup.
And that felt... nice.
Which was probably a problem.