A/N: This chapter isn't quite as bad as the last one. I hope it's not. Please don't flame. Hiccup will come right back at you with more flames, I think. Thank you for all the reviews, please keep leaving them. They make me happy :)

Jack stared up at the sky, his head filled with so many thoughts, he wasn't even sure which ones to pay attention to anymore. North sat beside him still, and he showed no discomfort although more snow was beginning to fall from the sky, representing the winter teen's feelings.

When Jack glanced around at him, he noticed that the man was dressed in a thick red coat with a furry lining. That explains why the cold doesn't bother him.

"So…" Jack began carefully, his long white fingers tracing patterns in the snow by his side. He watched what his hands were doing instead of watching North; he traced a little 'J' for his name. "So, this…this Final Duel thing…it has to be done, then?"

North frowned. "It doesn't have to be. The world would be better off with a little less war, after all."

"No, but…I mean, there is a way around it?" Jack hadn't thought of Hiccup for the whole day, which was an accomplishment for him. But the moment North had begun to explain the Final Duel, Jack's thoughts had shot off in the direction of his friend. He remembered Hiccup, his green eyes flicking guiltily down to Jack's burned arm, remembered him saying quietly, "I've already hurt you."

North hesitated. "It was stated once," he began carefully, "that there would be something that would lead both of you to no choice but the Duel. But that hasn't been said for a very long time, and I'm sure people have forgotten about it. It won't come to pass."

Jack remembered being trapped in Hiccup's inferno, struggling for breath, gasping for air, just wanting out. He remembered his own horrified countenance at Hiccup's idea, telling him to just let things be and let them go.

And then he closed his eyes against those thoughts, hoping North wouldn't say anything more. He didn't want to think any more about that Duel. And then a thought occurred to him and before he could question his own insensitivity, he'd blurted it out without thinking. "Did spring and autumn ever have to do this?"

North's blue eyes darkened again. They always did when he thought about the two elementals. "No. It was only meant for summer and winter, although spring was naturally meant to side with summer and autumn to side with you."

"And if we're so dangerous…" Jack continued quietly, staring down at his hands, thinking about the ice that could come shooting out if only he willed it, "if we're so dangerous, then why didn't they just kill us like they killed the others?"

"You can't kill an elemental," North replied softly. "Not without…terrible consequences."

"Oh." Jack didn't enjoy North's vague explanation, and he wanted to know more, but he had the feeling he'd overstepped North's boundaries with those last two questions. And he couldn't have the man get upset and leave him, because he still needed answers to his other questions, too.

Noticing Jack's confusion, the man sighed, adjusted his woolen cap upon his white hair and explained, "Spring was murdered personally, after only a few years of training." his eyes saddened. "The person who killed her awoke the next morning and found he had power over the trees, the birds, the flowers. The moment he'd done the deed, he'd gained the powers over spring instead. It's an elemental's last defense mechanism, to pass their power to the person who harms them. It's one's last resort."

Jack's blue eyes were growing wider by the second. "So, if…if somebody killed me, my power would just transfer straight to them?"

North nodded silently.

Jack stared at the snowy ground for a second, lost in his own thoughts. He had an odd feeling about learning all of this without Hiccup by his side. A sinking feeling that it was wrong, almost, that Hiccup should be here, that Hiccup should be learning this with him. Why though? he questioned himself.

"What about autumn?" he asked. "And what about me? Don't you think they'll have found a way around that mechanism? If it was a suicide, maybe—

North shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. They tried something like that with autumn, and it didn't work."

Jack looked down at the snow on the ground, covering the grass in a thin blanket of white. "What do you mean?" His head was beginning to pound with how much new information it now held and with how much information he knew there was still out there to discover.

"The defense mechanism is still active, no matter who the elemental's killer is," North explained.

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning even if the elemental chose suicide – and many people with these powers do; they see it as an alternative to being locked away, and a chance to go out on their own terms – their power would still pass on."

"But nobody's killed them." Jack replied. "They did it to themselves."

North shook his head. "The power transfers automatically to the people who killed them. And, unlike a murder, a suicide normally involves a lot more people. Hundreds of people wandering around with the power of winter at their fingertips – literally. Almost everybody you've come in contact with in your life gets a bit of your power. And the people you're closest to, they get the most."

Jack's head began to pound again. "Wait a second," he murmured. He probably needed more than a second to take this all in, but North was patient. They sat there for ten long minutes in silence, Jack trying to piece everything together in his mind. He reached down and grabbed up a small handful of snow, staring at it. He couldn't imagine dying and knowing his power was going to go to someone else.

It was funny – he had never been fond of his power, had in fact, been scared of his power for the better part of his life. He had never wanted to be like this, never dreamed of being a freak. But suddenly, as he thought about the alternatives, he couldn't imagine life without his powers, or worse, no life at all. It would feel like a part of him had been ripped away. How strange that the part of him he had once hated and feared now was the one part he couldn't imagine life without them.

He looked down at his pale hands for a long second; the palms now seemed to have a strangely blue tint that reminded him of his ice. "So…you train people, then? You'd train me?"

He felt an odd urge to run to Hiccup, to find him, wherever he might have been, and tell him all about the mysterious trainer, explain to him about spring and autumn and…his thoughts came to a screeching halt as he remembered. The Final Duel, the prophecy North could not repeat to him, the battle between fire and ice that had been destined to happen since forever. They could ignore the prophecy, couldn't they? Hiccup had made a lot of… Jack hesitated as he tried to think of the right word. Mistakes. Hiccup had made a lot of mistakes lately, a lot of bad decisions, but that didn't mean that Jack had to listen to some prophecy, right? He remembered hearing somewhere, maybe from a conversation between two guards outside his cell…he remembered hearing from them that prophecies were fulfilled by the choices people make, not by destiny or fate.

He wanted to find Hiccup and tell him all about North, and convince the boy to come back and train with him, and then the prophecy would never have to come true at all.

In fact, they could ignore it entirely, training side-by-side. And so lost in thought was he that he didn't even notice North saying, "That's what I'm here for, isn't it?"

"What?"

"That's what I'm here for," North repeated gently, which made Jack trust him just a bit more. Their captors had never liked repeating themselves, he remembered with a slight shudder. "To train you. And if you want, I will."