Chapter Text
The first thing Jack Frost noticed was that the wind had stopped talking. The second was that the ground was remarkably good at punching people in the face. The third–discovered approximately three seconds after the second–was that his staff had snapped.
“Oh,” Jack wheezed, staring at the broken curve of wood lying a few feet away. “That’s bad.”
He lay flat on his back beneath a pine tree, staring up at a sky that looked offensively normal. Blue. Cloudless. A few wisps of white drifting lazily across the horizon. No swirling vortex of black sand. No sinister laughter. No nightmare horses thundering across the heavens. And, most importantly, no moon. Jack sat up so quickly that the world tilted sideways.
“Okay. Okay, that’s fine.” He pressed a hand against his forehead. “Little fall through time. Happens to the best of us.”
It did not happen to the best of them. It had, however, happened to him. The last thing he remembered was Pitch’s grin, all sharp teeth and terrible satisfaction, as the darkness wrapped around him. Jack remembered swinging his staff, remembered ice splintering against black sand, remembered the sudden, sickening sensation of the world folding in on itself.
Then Pitch had said something. Something Jack couldn’t quite remember. And the world had broken. Jack pushed himself to his feet.
“Right. North?”
Silence.
“Tooth?”
Nothing.
“Bunny? Sandy?”
He waited. A bird chirped somewhere overhead. Jack stared at the trees. “Oh, you’re all hilarious.” He lifted his staff. Or tried to. The broken pieces lay in the dirt. For a moment, he simply looked at them. Then he snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing. A cold knot formed in his stomach. “No.”
Jack planted his feet, gripped the broken staff, and concentrated. He reached for the familiar cold that had always lived beneath his skin, for the frost that answered his thoughts as naturally as breathing. He pictured snow. Ice. A winter storm sweeping over a frozen lake. Nothing. Not even a pathetic little puff of frost. Jack’s smile disappeared. He tried to call the wind. The trees stood motionless.
For the first time in three hundred years, Jackson Overland Frost stood in the middle of the world and felt utterly, impossibly ordinary. He hated it. He hated the silence. He hated the stillness. He hated the way his hands trembled when he tried to make them stop. And he especially hated the fact that he had absolutely no idea where he was.
“Right,” he whispered. He swallowed. “One problem at a time.” A distant roar rolled across the forest. Jack froze. It wasn’t the sound of thunder. Thunder didn’t usually have that much personality. Another roar followed, louder this time, accompanied by the unmistakable crack of splintering wood. Jack slowly turned toward the sound.
Through the trees, something enormous moved between the trunks. It had wings. It had scales. It had a tail ending in a series of sharp-looking spines. And it was on fire. Jack blinked. The creature swooped between the trees, flames spilling from its mouth. A flock of birds scattered in every direction. Jack stared after it. Then he looked down at his broken staff. Then back at the dragon.
“...Pitch,” he said quietly, “I’m going to kill you.”
The dragon disappeared over the ridge. Jack took one look at the forest around him and made a decision. He was going to find civilization. He was going to find someone who knew where he was. He was going to find a way to get his powers back. And then he was going to find Pitch and personally introduce the Nightmare King to several extremely unpleasant weather phenomena. In that order. Probably. He started walking.
~*~*~*~
He had been walking approximately twenty minutes when he encountered the second dragon. This one was smaller. Only slightly smaller, admittedly, but Jack was trying to remain optimistic. It was crouched beneath a fallen tree, its dark body blending almost perfectly into the shadows. Two enormous green eyes watched him approach. Jack stopped. The dragon tilted its head. Jack tilted his. The dragon blinked. Jack blinked back.
“Hello,” Jack said cautiously. The dragon’s nostrils flared. Jack took a step backwards. “Okay. Great. We’re communicating. That’s–” The dragon lunged. Jack screamed. There were several things one should ideally possess when confronted by a dragon. A plan was one. A means of escape was another. Magic would have been nice. Jack had none of the above.
He threw himself sideways as the dragon’s jaws snapped shut where his head had been. He hit the ground, rolled down a small embankment, and landed in a heap of leaves. The dragon skidded after him.
“Oh, COME ON!”
Jack scrambled to his feet. The creature advanced, wings partially spread, its tail sweeping across the ground. Jack backed into a tree. “Listen, scales. I don’t know what your problem is, but I am having a terrible day, and I would really appreciate it if you didn’t make it worse.” The dragon growled.
“Right. Not a conversationalist.”
It lunged again. A sharp whistle cut through the air. The dragon stopped. A boy came sliding down the embankment on a pair of boots that appeared to have been designed by someone who had never actually met a functioning ankle. But, what would Jack know? He doesn’t wear shoes. The boy was lanky, with messy auburn brown hair, a green tunic and an expression of deep, immediate regret.
“Toothless! No! Bad dragon!”
The dragon–Toothless, apparently–turned toward him. The boy planted his hands on his hips. “We talked about this! We talked about not chasing strangers!” Toothless made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a complaint. “I don’t care if he smells weird!”
Jack stared at him. The boy stared at Jack. Toothless stared at both of them. A long silence followed. Then Jack slowly raised one hand. “Hi.” The boy glanced at the broken staff in Jack’s grip, the strange blue clothing, and the fact that Jack appeared to have come straight out of a particularly confusing nightmare. “Hi,” he replied cautiously. Jack gestured toward the dragon. “Your lizard tried to eat me.”
“He’s not a lizard.”
“Wonderful. Your enormous, winged, fire-breathing not-lizard tried to eat me.”
“He’s a dragon.”
“That does not improve the situation!”
Toothless huffed. The boy looked almost offended on his behalf. “He wasn’t going to eat you.” Jack glanced at the dragon’s teeth. “Really? Because I distinctly remember seeing my entire life flash before my eyes, and let me tell you, it was a deeply embarrassing montage.” The boy’s mouth twitched.
“You’re strange.”
Jack stared at him.
“I fell out of the sky.”
The boy’s expression changed. “...You what?”
“Fell. Out. Of. The. Sky.” Jack spread his arms. “Big dramatic entrance. Terrible landing. No applause. One-star experience.” The boy looked at the ridge above them. Then at the sky. Then back at Jack. “How?”
“If I knew that, do you think I’d be standing here arguing with your oversized gecko?”
“Dragon.”
“Gecko.”
“Dragon.”
“Flying gecko.”
Toothless growled.
“See? He agrees with me.” The boy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “My name’s Hiccup.”
“Jack.”
“Just Jack?”
“Just Hiccup?”
Hiccup paused.
“...Fair point.”
For a moment, they regarded one another. Then Hiccup glanced at the broken staff again. “What is that thing?” Jack looked down. His fingers tightened around the splintered wood. “My staff.”
“What does it do?” Jack hesitated. Usually, he would have grinned. Tossed it into the air. Made a snowflake dance across Hiccup’s nose before watching the boy yelp in surprise. Usually, he would have made a joke about being the coolest person in the room. Usually, the cold would have answered him. “Nothing,” he said. The word came out quieter than he intended. Hiccup seemed to notice. His expression softened, just a little.
“Well,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “if you’re lost, you could come back to Berk with me.” Jack looked up. “Berk?”
“My village.”
“Do you have a telephone?”
Hiccup frowned.
“A what?”
“Right. Of course you don’t. A boat?”
“Probably.”
“A library?”
Hiccup considered that.
“Sort of.”
“Excellent. Progress.”
“And food.”
Jack’s head snapped around. “Food?” Hiccup smiled faintly. “Yeah.” Jack looked at the sky one last time. No moon. No wind. No guardians. No way home. And somewhere out there, Pitch was probably laughing himself sick. Jack exhaled. “Fine, I’ll come to your village.”
“Great.”
“But if your dragon tries to eat me again, I’m haunting you.”
Hiccup blinked.
“You’re going to what?”
“Haunt you. Rattle chains. Whisper ominous. Move your furniture three inches to the left when you’re not looking.” Hiccup stared at him for a long moment. Then, inexplicably, he laughed. It was a surprised, slightly breathless laugh, as though he hadn’t expected Jack to be funny. Jack found he rather liked the sound.
“Come on,” Hiccup said, turning toward the ridge. “Berk’s this way.” Toothless padded after him. Jack followed, broken staff tucked beneath his arm. He didn’t know yet, but the boy walking ahead of him would eventually become one of the most important people in his life. He didn’t know about the ancient ruins beneath the mountains, or the strange markings that would appear on his staff, or the shadows that had followed him through time.
He didn’t know that the dragons of this world remembered something that humanity had forgotten. All Jack knew was that he was lost. And for the first time in centuries, he had something to walk beside him. To see him. For now, that would have to be enough.