To be perfectly honest Hiccup did not notice a thing. All he saw was a crazy draugr woman dancing in the snow. He stood as close to the burial mound as he dared. The thing was, to his surprise, much creepier outside than in. The inside was practically a little home. Outside the mound was obviously a burial mound, suggesting all that a burial mound entailed. Around him the snow fell, bright white. Very bright, incredible contrast to the blackness of the trees and night. It was all so clear.

He shook his head. He was letting his imagination go wild. Perfectly understandable. But the sight was still the same with the clarity and intensity of what he imagined an eagle could see. And everything grew sharper and clearer with every passing moment. The edges of the bare branches, a bat flying past, he noticed them all.

Wow. The dumbest of single words, and it was all he could think.

Disa had ended her snowfall prance. Her white hair cut through the night as she headed from the clearing. Hiccup quickly followed, amazed he had barely been able to see her earlier.

"You're slow!" she called back to him. She did not run, but her stride was gigantic.

"A little wait time on your part wouldn't hurt!" Slow had been something that had defined him well the past few months. His new leg had been designed for the flight stirrup, not running. It wasn't as if he were not perfectly capable of getting wherever he wanted. Speed simply wasn't part of the equation. As he was now, soul, spirit, whatever, he didn't feel the pain or fatigue of walking a long distance, but the pace was the same. And Disa was just really fast.

Her sigh was unnecessarily loud, but she stopped. "You seem distracted, boy."

He nodded as he caught up with her. "I can see everything."

"I wondered when you'd begin to notice."

"I could barely see you when you practically jumped me and now… wow."

"It doesn't take very long. Your hearing?"

He thought back to how noisy the clearing by the mountain had been. "I think that was the first thing to kick in."

She laughed. One that sounded almost normal. "Great. You feel validated in your amazing senses. Just keep those pretty eyes peeled and move it." And she was off again, long legs twisting and turning her body through the trees.

It was all Hiccup could do to keep up, but the spaces between the trees were plain. It was a rush, this dash through the labyrinth of tree trunks which stretched out in front of him, black wood against grey and white air. His hands touched the trunks as he passed and he felt again and again that sensation of feeling them through water.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Berk, of course."

"What? You said I—" He lost his balance in the distraction and fell, collided headfirst into a waterfall of wood—a tree. He fell to his hands and knees, gasping and feeling rather like he should be choking on a splinter in his throat.

"Did you fall?" Disa asked from somewhere ahead.

He picked himself up. He was shaking. "Yes." Simple answer. "I… I think I just fell through a tree."

"If you think you did, you probably did." She laughed. "Come on."

He stared back at tree. It seemed so solid, so tree-like. He pressed his right hand against it. It felt like a tree, maybe colder than other trees. He closed his eyes and pushed his hand into it. Right into it, up past his wrist. His eyes flew open. Again, wow. The sensation was like sticking his hand into a pool, except nothing was wet. He yanked his hand out and stared at it

"Hiccup, I'd like to make it to Berk by sunrise."

"I'm coming." He tore his gaze away from his hand and let it drop to his side. Think about getting home. Think about making sense of everything. He walked away from the tree. "I thought you said it would be useless for me to go home."

"Useless because you can't do anything, soul boy. I can."

"You said I shouldn't go back."

"When did I say I would let you into the village?"

He didn't reply. Oh, he would be going into the village, all right. Disa didn't know anything about him of even Berk for the past few centuries. Berk was his home.

Around him the forest grew steadily clearer. And he could hear just about everything. Insects in the air, wood cracking in the wind. Even the snow seemed to make a sound as it landed. Somehow, it was all reassuring. The epitome of a snowy night, so perfectly normal. For a moment he felt like his world wasn't completely over.

But as he walked on, things moved among the trees. Shapes. And no matter how intense his sight he could not make them out. More flashed by the further he walked. Not animals. Other things. And… faces. They seemed to over in the air just out of sight, appearing for only a second before vanishing.

Disa spoke before Hiccup could ask about them or even scream. "You thought you lived on such a peaceful little island, didn't you? Didn't think it was full of creatures like us."

"Us?" He hated the sound of that. "I'm not like you."

She stopped and turned back to him, mouth turned up in a grin, empty eye sockets right on him. "Well, you're hardly alive."

"Yeah, but I'm not some undead monster."

"True, but neither are half the things out here. These are what I wanted to show. I hoped you'd catch a glimpse of them."

He didn't want to ask the question, but his curiosity got the best of him. "What are they?"

She shrugged. "Various things. Ghosts, like you. Trolls, haldde, vaettr… who knows? I really don't bother introducing myself to everyone. Most of the things out here tend to keep to themselves, you understand."

"What are they doing here?"

"Hanging around. Just like me and you."

Well, whatever they were and whatever they wanted, Hiccup hated them. He found himself keeping closer to Disa, praying the things out there wouldn't bother a draugr.

Nothing else was said, not by Disa, not by Hiccup. He merely followed her through the trees, trying hard to ignore the things he saw. But the hours passed painfully, which was odd as he felt so little. He should have been tired, his leg aching. But instead he felt nothing, just amazement at the hours that passed. Only his mind was tired.

As the night wore down and dawn approached the forest became familiar. It suddenly seemed that maybe, possibly, the entire night had been nothing more than a bad dream or even a hallucination and he was fine and alive.

And then they stepped from the trees and Berk spread beneath them, a mess of white bumps sparkling against the ocean. It was beautiful. Hiccup stood at the top of the hill, and gazed down at it. Nothing could be wrong with such a charming sight. Everything had to be okay.

But the pit inside of him said otherwise.

"Stay right here," said Disa. She looked even more horrible in the daylight. At night she fit in merely as a monstrosity of the darkness—completely natural if horrifying. Such things were expected at night. Now she was a disgusting and terrifying mess.

"But…"

"No one will notice you, and you won't be able to stand seeing anyone. I'll hide, drops hints of the other side of the island."

"You're a draugr."

"I can hide. This is far from my first time of wandering into the village." And she ran down the hill.

Hiccup waited at the top of the hill for Disa to disappear. He had just spent the night talking to a draugr, something undead. So he was dead. But he didn't want to be dead. Falling off of Toothless was just a horrible dream.

He was going into the village.

Carefully he walked down the hill, the natural caution of movement taking over every step. Just like normal. Completely ordinary. He had taken a bad spill, spent the night in the snowy woods, but he was coming home now. Just fine. Nothing wrong.

The village already showed signs of waking up. People were out, clearing paths through the snow. Smoke billowed from chimneys.

And there was one small figure wrapped in furs rushing through the snow straight to Hiccup's own home. Astrid.

He hurried faster through the snow.

She banged on the door with her fist. "Hiccup! Are you there? Stoick!" She looked great. Her cheeks were red from the cold and from running. "Is anyone home?"

"Astrid!" He shouted her name as he nearly fell onto the doorstep.

She didn't look at him.

"Astrid!" He grabbed her arm.

She pounded another fist against the door. "Hiccup! It's me!"

Hiccup stepped back. She didn't even notice him. It was like before all over again. Only worse. She couldn't see him. She couldn't even feel him touching her.

"Astrid!"

She whirled around, apparently quite capable of hearing that voice.

His father was trudging up the hill. "Any sign of him?"

"I came to ask you." She paused. "So he didn't come back last night?"

"No." Stoick shook his head. "I've been out for a few hours now, out in the woods. He… he might have come in during that time." Hope entered his voice. "But there's no sign of the dragon anywhere." He pushed open the door and led Astrid into the house. "It was so hard to look for him in the dark. Hiccup!"

Hiccup slowly entered the house behind them. They didn't see him. They couldn't see him. Disa had been right.

"Hiccup!" Stoick called from the bottom of the staircase.

Useless. He could tell them he wasn't up there. But no, his dad just had to go check.

Astrid stood motionless in the room. She looked terrified.

"He's not up here," Stoick's voice sounded from above.

For a horrible moment the house seemed to darken, and freeze. Hiccup couldn't take much more of all these cold feelings. He turned and stumbled from the house.

Outside he could see the entire village, all charmingly capped with snow, sitting pretty while his body and his dragon were on the other side of the island. His dragon. Toothless. How could he have just left him there? Hiccup skidded down the hill. Other people were out, battling against the snow. Just like any other snowy morning except his name seemed to be everywhere.

Disappeared last afternoon. Didn't come back last night. Not back this morning.

No one noticed him. Here he was, walking among them and no one gave him the slightest glance. He felt he could run screaming through them and not glean a drop of attention. Disa had been right. He should have listened to her. It was useless to be here.

Though what Disa said she would do? Whisper? Hide? Drop a few messages about where he might be? That didn't seem to be happening.

Finally he couldn't take it anymore. He did what he had already done several times since the fall. He screamed. And his assumption was right. No attention so ever. No one noticed him. Because there was nothing to notice because he was absolutely nothing right now and his body had been killed in an awful fall and he was never going to speak to anyone he cared about ever again…

He pushed through the wall of a house. Fishlegs' family's. Though he really didn't care about who it belonged to. All he could feel was the sickening sensation of pushing through something he really should not be able to push through. But he could and it was horrible and when it was over he was in a nice ordinary room with a hearth and a fire and a nice table and he did not enter that room the ordinary way. He shoved his way into the bedroom. There was Fishlegs, still lazily sleeping, completely ignorant of Hiccup's predicament.

"Can't you hear me?" Hiccup screamed.

Nothing. Of course nothing.

He pushed his way through the wall to the outside. Why did he keep doing it if he hated it so much? Probably because he had nothing else to do. He stomped through the snow, not making a single impact upon it, until he finally couldn't take it anywhere and threw himself down into it. Face first into the snow. It should have been cold but it wasn't. He sobbed. Hard. He knew he was the only one who could hear it and somehow that gave him so much power. He could cry for as long as he wanted and no one could do anything about it.

Finally, exhausted, he lifted his head. All the fatigue, all the ache, everything he should have felt earlier tore at him. He gasped for breath, wondering if he really needed it. Snow was falling again.

It seemed a gathering had occurred. Right in the middle of the village. That was never good. The tended to mean an emergency, a we-don't-have-time-to-gather-in-the-hall emergency. It wasn't a particular large crowd, but there was his father in the middle saying something about a search party.

"I don't know what good it will do," Gobber was saying.

How right he was.

"Hiccup probably decided to camp out. Maybe he couldn't see in the snow. Holed up somewhere for the night."

No, that was not what he had done.

Stoick slowly shook his head. His eyes were red and tired. He must have not slept all night. "He would have been back by now. He has that dragon."

"I'm just saying he's wandered off before."

Never for all night.

"Never all night," Stoick said fiercely. "Never. And don't you dare say there is a first time for anything. There's a blizzard coming in. It will likely to hit today. You can see it coming in."

The clouds, spilling snow, were growing far too grey for morning.

"Have we checked the other side of the island?" someone called out.

"Why would he be on the other side of the island?" Stoick asked.

The man shrugged. "I thought I heard people mentioning it."

"And what does that mean? The other side of the island?"

So much for Disa's plan.

"Search everywhere, then. Everywhere on the island we can reach. Find him." He turned, body seeming to sag from the effort of shouting. He seemed so tired. "I'm heading out along the east shoreline. Who's coming with me?"

Someone slipped from the crowd, and Hiccup's gaze followed. There was Astrid, followed by Snotlout and Fishlegs, who must have awoken while Hiccup was bawling into a pile of snow.

"Dragons," Snotlout was saying. "And just what are we supposed to see from the backs of the dragons?"

"Anything," Astrid snapped back. "He took Toothless out yesterday for a flight. Chances are Hiccup is somewhere with a dragon. Dragon accessible."

"He might have fallen into the ocean."

Not funny. Hiccup followed them.

"Hiccup's too good to fall." Astrid turned down the path to the arena.

"I had a dream about him this morning," Fishlegs said. "We were in the woods. He was yelling at me."

"Everyone yells at you," Snotlout said with exasperation. "I'm about to yell at you."

"Hey, I just thought it would be interesting to bring up."

Hiccup stopped and watch them file down to the arena. Fishlegs couldn't have possibly heard…

Well, it didn't matter what anyone heard or didn't hear. All anyone could hope to find was a body. His body. Last night that had seemed the best thing, some sort of conclusion.

Now he wasn't so sure.

He slowly made his way to the harbor. He still wanted to scream and cry, but the energy wasn't there. The harbor was more or less peaceful. Ships, fishing boats, all bobbing happily in the water, nothing wrong with them save for the threat of the coming blizzard.

He sat cross-legged, and stared down into the water. It was foggy, and the snowflakes that struck the surface instantly faded into the blur of ocean water color. It was heavy snow, heavier than the night before. How would anyone find anything in it? His dad was keep trying, he could trust that much. He could see it now, his stubborn father fighting against the snow only to find… Hiccup didn't want to think about that. And Toothless. How would Toothless fare in this weather? What was the dragon even doing at this moment? Where would he go when the blizzard set in? He couldn't fly…

He stared out into the ocean past the pouring snow, then at the familiar line of ships.

But one was new.

Well, new wasn't the right word to describe it. It looked like an old fishing boat made only for a few people, hardly seaworthy. Yet it was just hideous enough that it should have been long recognized as a village joke. It was dull, void of any decoration, though the hull had been painted black. That black was now faded, and planks of graying wood glimpsed through.

And the boat was not tied up. But it hung near the shore, bouncing in the waves without ever drifting.

It fascinated him. He couldn't explain what drew him to it, but it fascinated him. He stood up and made his way down to it. It did not drift away as he entered the water. He grabbed the sides, then quickly draw away his hands.

The boat felt… normal. No strange coldness, no odd pressure. Just the normal sensation of touching a normal wooden boat. He heaved himself over the side.

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

Great. The draugr had found him. She stood on the dock, staring down at him with no eyes.

"Um… I'm not sure?" Because he really had no earthly reason why he would be climbing into a boat.

"You went into the village."

"I have a problem with following instructions. Ask anyone. I have the attention span of a sparrow."

Disa took a running jump and landed in the boat. "And just what do you plan on doing with this boat?"

"I have no idea. Maybe I felt like doing a little fishing. Forgive me for wanting a moment of normalcy." He leaned from the bow and dipped his fingers into the water.

She sighed. "Hiccup, you're dead. You just can't—" She shrieked.

The boat was moving away from the dock.