So this is actually a combination of three things. The first is the poem/song that got all of this running in the first place, "Come Little Children" by Edgar Allan Poe. I had listened to it in the context that it could be a good Pitch song, but as I listened, I couldn't help but think it seemed more like Jack, a darker Jack, but still Jack. Which made me think of this prompt that I had actually been thinking about filling a short time ago (link on my profile). The last bit of push was when I saw a post on Tumblr (link also on profile) which featured a dark!Hijack. And, well, this is what happened.
I've been thinking of this as a kind of Anti-Hero!Hijack AU, but I'm not a hundred percent sure it fits.
A note for those who didn't check the prompt link: Jack's the bogeyman, but he still retains his playful nature and care for kids so he's "conflicted with his desire to protect them, play with them, love them and his duty to scare them, teach them hard lessons, make them fear him."
For Hiccup, this takes place in an AU where Hiccup hadn't told Stoick about the Red Death so Hiccup's forced to face his punishment for "treason".
Warnings: Character death, child abduction, mentions of violence, blood
Wow, this is the first time I've ever needed to post warnings on a story.I wasn't sure if it should be T or M, but since everything was minor I left it at T. Please tell me if I need to change it.
-.-
"A monster, a monster, I've turned into a monster. A monster, a monster, and it keeps getting stronger!" ~ Monster by Imaginary Dragons
"Come little children. I'll take thee away, into a land of enchantment. Come little children. The time's come to play, here in my garden of shadows."
"No, please stop this!"
Gobber sent Hiccup a quick disappointed glance as Astrid sent him one filled with pity, but otherwise the boy's pleas and struggles were ignored. The entire Hooligan tribe had come to the kill ring to cheer on their chief as he became the first person to kill the elusive and powerful Night Fury. Everyone stood outside the cage except Stoick, who was looking over the rack of weapons as he decided which to use, along with Spitelout and Hiccup, the latter being held back by the former a short ways from the dragon.
As Stoick finally picked up an axe, Hiccup felt tears come to his eyes. "Please, Dad, stop!" he sobbed.
"Follow sweet children. I'll show thee the way, through all the pain and the sorrows."
Stoick ignored Hiccup and turned to the dragon. The teen let the tears flow freely as his father approached Toothless. This wasn't fair. Hiccup's best friend, the only person who had ever cared about him, was about to die and it was all his fault. Why hadn't he ran like he had planned? Why had he even tried to change his father's mind? His tribe's mind? Centuries of tradition? He was a fool and now Toothless was going to pay the price.
"Weep not poor children for life is this way, murdering beauty and passions."
"Dad stop please! He hasn't done anything! Just let him go!"
The man ignored both his son's pleas and the taunts of "Traitor" that had joined the crowds cheers for the death of the dragon as he stepped up to the beast's head.
He raised his axe high.
"Hush now dear children. It must be this way, too weary of life and deceptions."
"No!"
With strength he didn't think he had and some he knew he didn't, Hiccup threw his uncle off him and ran to his dragon. Right as the axe fell, the boy threw himself over Toothless's head and neck.
"Rest now my children. For soon we'll away, into the calm and the quiet."
Hiccup began to stir as raindrops began to hit his face. His eyes fluttered open as he slowly sat up. Looking around, he realized he was in Toothless's cove. He must have fallen asleep. Even with the heavy storm clouds moving in, he could tell it was late. Although, he didn't feel as cold as he should have...
The boy shook his head and stood up. "Toothless? Where are you buddy?" he asked looking around for the dragon.
Suddenly lightning flashed behind Hiccup, casting a large shadow with wings in front of him.
"Toothless?" asked Hiccup, taking a step forward before turning to look behind him. He didn't see anything, but something near the water's edge caught his attention. As he moved closer, he realized it was his journal. It was lying open on a rock right next to the water to a pair of empty pages. At least they had been empty, but someone else had written on them. The words were not Norse, English he believed, and yet he could still read them.
He picked it up and read, "Take care of your business with the humans. I'll be waiting." in a jagged script. Hiccup frowned at the words. Confused, he let the hand holding the journal fall and gazed into the water, immediately finding a distraction.
The pond had been frozen to a smooth, mirror-like quality, but that wasn't what had Hiccup in shock. No, Hiccup stared in shock at his reflection.
That couldn't be him. The reflection didn't have his soft green eyes and auburn hair. The reflection's irises were bright red and covered its whole eye. Its pupils were slitted and the eyes reflected the small amount of moonlight that made it through the clouds like a dragon's. It had scales on its forehead that trailed down the sides of its face to its ears. The reflection's shirt and vest were missing, revealing more scales on its wrists and forearms along with a large pair of wings and a tail similar to Toothless's. Its scales, hair, wings, and tail were all black, but a flash of lightning revealed a slight red tint. Its open mouth revealed smooth, dragon like fangs in the place of normal flat teeth.
The journal fell to the ground as Hiccup looked down at his (were those claws) hands before looking back to the reflection. "What happened to me?" Hiccup gasped, eyes tracking the small forked tongue dancing in his mouth as he spoke.
Suddenly the memories washed over him and reptilian eyes slipped closed. He had faced the Nightmare. He had tried to show the villagers (Vile humans, foolish humans, cruel humans) that they didn't need to fear the creatures. His father had interrupted and set off the dragon (Careless, idiot, not sire, doesn't deserve to be thought of as sire). Toothless (Loyal, trustworthy, unlike humans) had come to save him. Toothless was captured and he tried to talk his father into letting him go, but he could only say so much without revealing the nest (Stupid humans, would try to go after death-bringer, get themselves killed, could get innocent dragons killed in process). His father wouldn't listen and then he disowned Hiccup (Sire does not abandon young, human always abandon young, first with dam, then with other human after dam die, not sire, never sire). It was decided that Toothless would be executed (Murdered, murdered, MURDERED!) before Hiccup was sent away as an Outcast. Hiccup wouldn't, couldn't let them kill Toothless though. He broke free of the one holding him and... He couldn't remember what happen next.
(Tried to save, threw self over self, died, mourned, then died too, then dark one save, now can teach humans lesson, show should have listened before, all die like selves, then the other humans will learn)
What about Astrid? (Did nothing! No save, no help, not even speak to! Untrustworthy, selfish!)
Hiccup's head dropped into his hands. This was wrong, these thoughts and feelings that felt foreign, yet not. The people of Berk were his tribesmen and blood (Not pack, turned backs on since birth, names and fists and legs thrown at, runt, useless, but not runt or useless, small is good, like Furies of Night, also smart, brains good, better than strength, little take down giant if use head, we teach them that, come, come! Humans don't deserve loyalty! They not loyal, not trustworthy).
A small amount of anger started to fill him from that foreign-but-not part of him. He let it, if only to escape the stew of other feelings filling him: confusion, fear, sadness, betrayal.
(Come, come!)
The dragon-hybrid thought of his earlier words to his - to Stoick. "We've killed thousands of them. They're just defending themselves****" It was true. They had to bring the queen (Death-bringer) food so that it (He) doesn't kill them and they had to raid the humans to get food. It was the humans fault the dragons served the death-bringer anyways, right? If the fools had of invaded their (Our) territory, then we wouldn't have been forced to move to the islands so close to the dragon (Demon), wouldn't have been caught and forced to either be eaten or serve. Yes, the humans brought this upon themselves. Perhaps if a tribe was wiped out, then the others would see the truth.
Hiccup pulled his face out of his hands to show a wicked smile. "Yes, if they won't listen to reason, then violence is the only way left."
(Yes, yes -) "Yes!" Hiccup's wings spread wide as he jumped to his feet and screamed the word, the result sounding caught somewhere between his own voice, a roar, and the shriek Toothless had always given before an attack. He kicked of the ground and shot into the air, soaring towards the kill ring. He would free the dragons, then decide what to do with their captors.
Hiccup dropped the red-haired man and licked the blood off his hands. Once finished, he glanced around the remains of the village. In all fairness, he had planned on simply freeing the captured dragons, causing a little mayhem and damage, then taking off with his new pack. But then he had seen them; Toothless's body - headless, left to rot at the edge of the forest near the kill ring - and his own - on a stake near the cliff as a warning, a large gash in his back stopped inches from cutting him clean in two. After that, well, he was a little too happy to listen to that voice in his head telling him to injure, maim, KILL!
He had of course freed the dragons first, and then his pack attacked. They had caught the humans off guard. This wasn't some loud, bulky raid were most of the dragons were focused on stealing food and the others were simply setting things on fire to distract the humans. This was a massacre! The devil-fire and twin-head (or monstrous nightmare and hideous zippleback as his memories stated) focused on houses, burning them down or blowing them up to drive out those that could escape in time and kill those that couldn't. The vain-spine (deadly nadder) and stone-eater (gronkle) kept to the sky's shooting down spines and fireballs into crowds. The common-terror (terrible terror) somehow managed to gather a whole flock of its kind in a matter of seconds and they shot through the village, herding humans towards the vain-spine or stone-eater, helping trap them in burning homes, or sinking fangs into weapon-armed hands.
That left Hiccup, running and flying through the village, sinking fangs and claws into throats, occasionally ripping off limbs or gouging stomachs when the swift kills were either hard to come by or he simply didn't think they deserved it. Both the humans his old memories referred to as Gobber and fishlegs received swift kills at the beginning, fast and pain-free they never even realized what was happening. On the other hand, the man who laid at his feet, the not-sire, had been saved for last and had been much, much slower.
Now all the humans on the island had been slain, except the blonde girl, the Astrid. She had been knocked out and placed out-of-the-way towards the beginning. Someone had to live to tell the other humans what had happened. How the tribe of Berk had fallen because of their foolish ways.
The devil-fire landed next to him and Hiccup gave a garbled growl, telling the dragon to lead the others to the pond in the forest and to wait for him there. The dragon gave a small snort of confirmation before taking to the skies, his growl echoing out to give the pack his alpha's commands.
The hybrid watched them go before dropping down to the docks and destroying all but the smallest seafaring vessel. The girl would need to leave the island somehow to bring her message elsewhere. The boy turned to follow his pack, when a sound made him stop. More than a sound really, music.
As he followed the notes, he wondered who could be causing it. Had he missed someone? He didn't think so. All the houses had burned to the ground. The great hall had been filled to the brim with twin-head smoke before he had set it ablaze. There had to be someone though, as he could hear the moan-like chanting of a male human.
Hiccup flew past the burned village and into the forest to land just a short ways in. He peaked around a tree and took in the odd sight before him. What appeared to be the village's entire population of children seemed to be dancing and playing in the clearing. Thinking back, he realized that during the entire attack, he hadn't seen a single person under the age of thirteen. Had they been here this entire time? How had the not heard the screams and roars? How were they completely oblivious to the horrors that had just happened in their village just steps away?
Leaning forward, Hiccup caught a look at one of the children's face as she passed. Although everything from the smile on her face to the way she danced would seem as if she was simply playing, the glassy look to her eyes revealed the truth. She, along with the rest of the children probably, was in a trance.
Red eyes scanned the clearing until the found a shadowy figure sitting on a low branch of a tree across the clearing from Hiccup. The distance and dark shadows over the figure made it hard to see much more than black hair, yellow eyes, and pale skin.
Just as Hiccup realized the music was coming from a harp the figure was playing and the chanting from the figure itself, the moans turned into true singing.
"Come little children. I'll take thee away, into a land of enchantment."
Hiccup gasped at the voice. It was the same as the one he had heard right before he died. The last words anyone had spoken to him, and he hadn't given them a thought before now.
"Come little children. The time's come to play, here in my garden of shadows."
As the voice sang, the clouds shifted to block out even more of the moons rays. The children became little more than shadows while the figure was hidden completely. The music slowed to a stop and the clouds finally moved on, moonlight streaming down unhindered.
Hiccup's eyes went wide as he processed what he saw. The children had truly become shadows , mere silhouettes of what they once were with empty white eyes , and the figure had vanished. The children, if he could even call them that anymore, scattered at the touch of the moonbeams, literally disappearing into the shadows of the forest before he could even move.
"I see you've awoken and finished your business with the humans."
The dragon-boy swung around, nearly taking off the head of the person behind him. He would have too, had they not caught his hand. The boy, as Hiccup quickly realized, appeared to be a few years older than Hiccup and was most likely his missing "shadowy figure". The boy had short, fluffy black hair and, contradictory to what he first thought, primarily silver eyes with a band of gold around his pupils resembling an eclipse that seemed to glow in the dark. He wore a black, hooded cape over a dark grey skirt and brown trousers that were tied around his calves with leather.
Hiccup took note of the boy's grey skin, bare feet, and thin clothing before stating simply, "You're not human."
The boy gave the hybrid a playful grin, showing off a mouthful of jagged teeth that were more like a sharks than his own dragon fangs, and said, "You think so?"
Narrowing his eyes, Hiccup yanked his arm away from the boy and said, "Who are you? Why are you here? What did you do to those kids?"
"Hm," the boy hummed, looking over Hiccup before giving Hiccup a big, mischievous grin. "I'm your daddy."
Hiccup growled.
"Oh calm down my little Shadow Fury , I'm just kidding. Though it is because of me that you're alive now instead of taking a one way trip to Hel."
"How -" Hiccup started to ask, but was cut.
"Uh-uh-uh, I only take one question at a time and you've already asked three. Now let's see. First, was 'Who are you?' yes? I go by many names. The Bag Man, Talasam, Bua, Krampus , Bogeyman, and Nightmare King to name a few. You, however, may call me Jack, Jack Phobia .
"Next was… 'Why are you here?' right? Simple, for you. Did you think I was going to bring you back to life and then just leave you to wonder?
"Last was the children and that one's easy. I saved them from the little tantrum you threw over in the village. Not that they didn't deserve it, I'm not too fond of Vikings myself, but children are best left out of petty squabbles," the boy, Jack, finished.
"But what did you - You know what, I don't even care. I'd rather know what you did to me."
"I. Brought. You. Back. To. Life," Jack said slowly. "I thought we already covered that."
Hiccup snorted and pointed to his back. "I don't remember having wings or scales or a tail."
"That's because unlike some people," Jack gave a quick glare to the sky as he said it before smiling at Hiccup again. "I can't just go around creating immortals willy-nilly. Fearlings, sure, but they're not as… defined as a true immortal. Those take a lot of power. I can only make one every long while and only one. Unfortunately that meant either ditching your little dragon or fusing your spirits into one. The second sounded more interesting."
"Wait," Hiccup said, staring at the boy in front of him in shock. "You're saying Toothless and I are - We're - He's inside me?" Hiccup thought back to that foreign-but-not part of him. Was that Toothless? Now that he was calmer, he could barely feel it. Like it had curled in on itself at the back of his mind, sleeping.
Jack laughed and said, "It's a little more complicated than that. It's more like, you are one. You share a mind, a body. You must have noticed."
"Why?"
"Do you not like it? I could separate you, though then Toothless would be lost."
Hiccup growled at the boy. He could feel Toothless waking up and the dragon wanted nothing more than to attack, but Hiccup held back. He didn't know who this boy was, none of the names he had given had meant anything to Hiccup, but he was obviously powerful if he not only brought Hiccup with his dragon back to life, but joined them into a single body and made them immortal too.
"Why would you save us though? What reason would you have for making us immortal?"
Jack giggled and began circling the hybrid. Hiccup tried to follow him, but the spirit would randomly disappear only to reappear on the opposite side of Hiccup he had been before. "Oh, I've been watching you for a while now and let's just say I find you intriguing . So very different from your tribes men, in a good way I assure you, and alone. I considered making you into a fearling," Jack said, looking over his shoulder towards the clearing where the children-turned-shadows had disappeared and Hiccup shivered. If that was what fearlings were, he didn't want any part of it. "But I couldn't bring myself to do it," Jack continued, turning back to Hiccup and returning to his circling. "And then you were too old and I started to bore. Until you found your dragon and I watched how you acted with it. The way you two seemed so in tune. After that, I knew what I wanted."
"You wanted to make me - us immortal?"
"Hm," Jack hummed and the hybrid couldn't tell if it was a confirmation or not, but took it as one.
"Then why wait? Why not change us before? Why wait until we had died?"
"I told you, making immortals takes a lot of power. I won't go into specifics, but turning a living human or animal into an immortal takes a lot more power than turning a dead one. Power I don't have. If I tried to make you immortal while you were alive, I could have faded trying to exert that much power and you still might not have made it. That's not even considering the extra power I had to put in to fuse you two together. I slept for three weeks after I finished. I was a little worried I had missed you."
"Th-three weeks! How long has it been since I died?" Hiccup nearly yelled.
"About a month," Jack said, appearing right behind Hiccup and running a hand down his wing thoughtfully. The hybrid stiffened, both at the boy's touch and words. He heard Jack chuckle before he pulled his hand away. "Well, if that's all then I suppose I'll be going. People to scare and my new fearlings need a playmate."
"W-wait, you're leaving?" the hybrid asked, turning to Jack to see him beginning to walk away. He grabbed the boy's arm and said, "Shouldn't you stay to watch me? What if I do something like what I did in Berk again? What if I need you?"
Jack turned back to Hiccup with a smirk. "Relax, I brought you back to life. I didn't give birth to you. And I do believe you're old enough to not need someone trailing after you all the time. As for your other concerns, it might help to figure out your territory and go from there. I'm sure Toothy's instincts will help keep things in order. Just try to keep the killing to a minimum and if you or Toothy do decide on going on another mass killing spree, just give me a heads up so I can round-up the kids."
Jack pulled his arm away and patted Hiccup on the cheek. "Don't worry little Shadow Fury, we'll be seeing each other again soon, real soon."
Hiccup's mouth opened and closed before he forced it closed and stood up straight. Jack wa right, he wasn't some kid that needed to hold his mother's hand all the time. He could handle himself, and Toothless was quick to agree. He gave Jack the most confident look he could and nodded. "Right, I should be getting back to my pack."
Jack smiled and looked him up and down again. Suddenly his grin got even bigger and before Hiccup could react, Jack leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Real soon." Then he was gone, quickly fading right into the shadows.
-.-
I don't know why, but I've fallen in love with this AU. Expect to see more of this.
I decided on Shadow Fury for Hiccup's AU title since I wanted something more animal-ish for his title since he's supposed to be a more animal-instinct driven version of my Dragon Prince from the movie-swap AU I did for Hijack Week. I decided on SF since it represents his melding with Toothless along with his bond to Jack. Additionally, I decided to go with Jack Phobia for Jack's AU name since I wanted something original (or at least something I've never seen) and I thought I'd use phobia since it has the f sound like frost. Also, there was no way in Hel's palace I was calling him Jack Black. No just no!
I've decided that as Shadow Fury, Hiccup has the gift of tongues since dragons understand all languages (in my opinion). As such, this applies to reading also. Because Toothless's input can sometimes change a little detail (dragon queen to death-bringer), a bigger detail (thinking of the dragons as separate to thinking of himself as a part of them), or completely derail him mid-sentence, Hiccup can sometimes act a little bipolar.
Dragons have different names for each other than the ones the humans use for them (obviously). Some are similar like Red Death - death-bringer and terrible terrors and common-terrors, but others are far more different. Hiccup will usually refer to the dragons in these names instead of their human names because of Toothless. (Side note: I chose the name common-terrors as both a joke on how they have a larger population size then other dragons and as a reference to how the terrors are based on the common or garden dragon, Toothless's species in the book series.
As in the prompt, Jack Phobia still cares for children and wants to play with them, so back in the dark ages, he used to turn needy children into fearlings so that they could play with him forever. He would take orphans that had been abandoned on the street or the children that would have died in some disaster. Of course, when he felt he need more "friends" quickly, he would sometimes cause his own disasters so that he could "save" them. I'll let you guys decide which category this falls under. Also, since I don't actually know what color fearlings eyes are (I couldn't find a colored picture) I decided to just go with white to keep them separate from the Nightmares, who have gold eyes.
The Bag Man, Talasam, Bua, and Krampus are all different names of, or the names of people similar to, the Bogeyman. For this, I'm just going to say they're all Jack.
I'm not exactly happy with how Jack's dialog came out, but decided that since he is both quite a bit older than he had been in the movie along with living in an entirely different era, his vocabulary would be a bit different.
The power use difference for turning a living human and a dead one is my headcanon. My reasoning being that the living have too many ties to the physical world. In order to make them an immortal spirit you'd either have to sever the ties between their spirit and they're physical body (which would basically be killing them anyways and would be very painful for them considering you are literally ripping their soul out) or sever the ties between their body and the physical world (which would take a lot of energy). Then you would have to expend the energy to morph their body (both cosmetic changes to have them match their new status and the changes necessary to be sure they'll be able to hold the mystic power they're granted without it destroying them). Then of course you still need to grant them that power which, again, takes energy.
On the other hand, when the person/animal is already dead, their spirit is already free of its physical ties. Since spirits are relatively malleable, it's easy to shape them into a form that works cosmetically and practically. The only real energy that's needed is to grant the spirit power and then any additions that you may want (such as Jack fusing Hiccup and Toothless or MIM binding Jack's powers and spirit with his staff).
If you actually read through all that, then here's a cookie *hands over cookie*
Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment or review. I don't have a beta, so I'm almost positive that I left at least two mistakes in here.
~ Reid