A Boy and His Dragon:

"WHOA!" Hiccup yelped as he suddenly lost his footing. One second ago he'd been walking across that frozen lake in Burgess Forest with his four friends, two of whom as well as himself were now spirits having been caught in deadly 'accidents' which may not have been accidents but rather magically orchestrated by a supernatural witch of folklore, and the third now being a sort of wispy being seeing as he was already a spirit…

Hiccup's head began hurting again.

But that was one second ago - one second, solid ice beneath his feet, even as an admittedly beautiful star-filled blackness surrounded him and he could no longer see his friends. The next, he's stepped into nothingness and tumbled head over heels for a second or two before…

THUD!

"Ooff!" Hiccup grunted as his head narrowly missed what looked like a rock and his face became best friends with the ground. Wincing as he pushed himself back up again, at the same time making sure that he didn't have a nosebleed, Hiccup noticed that the ground itself was far different to the one he'd left back in Burgess. There was no concrete. No wet leaves or piles of snow, although the air around him was undoubtedly cold. No, this ground was dusty, like a hard soil common around rock formations, with small patches of hardy grass and moss. Standing up and shaking his head clear, Hiccup took in his surroundings.

"I'm…definitely not in Burgess anymore," he muttered to himself when he saw.

He was in a cove of some sorts, with high rocky walls surrounding a small lake on all sides (one lake to another…wow). The rock-walls had the occasional set of roots tumbling down them and Hiccup could see a forest encircling the cove above him. Wherever he was, it wasn't lacking in natural aesthetics, that was certain. But Hiccup couldn't shake something about this place…

Why did it feel so familiar?

Growl.

"Ah!" Hiccup exclaimed at the sound, jumping a foot into the air as he spun around. The sight that greeted him was both terrifying and mesmerising at the same time.

A great black creature, at least fifteen feet in length, stood before him, eyeing him down with two eyes of the brightest green that Hiccup had ever seen. When it moved, it revealed it's body shape - sleek and streamlined with a grace that reminded Hiccup of a panther. It's mouth was lined with pointed teeth - evidently a keen predator. But that wasn't the main thing that caught Hiccup's attention. No, Hiccup's attention was mostly focused on the fact that one: the creature was reptilian; and two: there were two distinct wings folded against it's back.

This creature was a dragon.

"Whoa…" Hiccup exhaled in amazement once he'd gotten over his initial shock at seeing a freaking dragon in front of him. "My day just got a whole lot weirder…" he muttered. The dragon grunted and went by its own business - when it turned its back, Hiccup spotted that it was missing a tail fin. He found himself wondering how that had happened, but at the same time he felt a wrenching in his chest and suddenly felt incredibly guilty. Why would he be feeling that way?

The dragon had clambered up onto a nearby boulder and Hiccup was about to follow to take a closer look when a noise made him jump again. This time, it came from the edge of the cove, from a small gap in the rocks. Hiccup couldn't see anyone around but there was a small fish lying on the ground.

"Uh…kay?" Hiccup frowned but he nearly cried out loud when he saw what followed the fish.

In the gap, hiding himself behind a shield, was a young boy - no older than fifteen. As he walked forward, the shield he was carrying got stuck in the gap between the rocks - after a few seconds of trying to dislodge it, he gave up and instead headed into the cove and picked the fish back up. Now that he was in full sight, Hiccup could see his full appearance.

The boy was wearing a woollen long-sleeved green tunic under a long, sleeveless fur coat, as well as dark green trousers and dark brown fur boots. It wasn't the getup that stunned Hiccup the most. The boy was small, not much taller than five-foot-three or four if Hiccup had to take a guess, and he was rather scrawny as well. His face was oval shaped and freckled, sporting a pair of forest green eyes under bangs of auburn brown that shimmered red in the sunset that was over the cove.

Hiccup had seen enough photos at home to recognise the boy as resembling his fifteen-year-old-self perfectly…pre-leg-loss, by the looks of things.

"He looks like…me…?" he whispered in disbelief.

"If you want to be technically correct, it's more that you two look like me," a soft voice sounded.

"AH!" Hiccup exclaimed for what felt like the billionth time in the space of ten minutes. Seriously…what was it about suddenly becoming a spirit and him getting so jumpy?

Spinning around, Hiccup was once again stunned into silence at what he saw. Just behind him was an apparition of a young man, garbed in reds and golds with hints of emerald green- the fabric wasn't quite silk or satin, more of a fine wool but something about it seemed mystical. His outfit comprised of what looked like leather riding armour, combined with metal shoulder and arm guards, as well as a cloak that billowed around his feet…well, right foot. Hiccup recoiled when he saw that this man also had a prosthetic left leg.

There was a look of wisdom and great knowledge about the man, but also the feel that this man had seen battle and knew how and when to fight. He looked to be in his early to mid twenties, with windswept hair that framed an angular face beset with two forest green eyes. Despite the five o'clock shadow beard that he was sporting, Hiccup could see the resemblance the man had to the fifteen-year-old boy in the cove behind him…the resemblance to himself.

"Are you…one of the Earth Guardians Mother Nature was talking about?" he asked quietly.

"In a sense," the man replied. He was nearly transparent - it was evident that he was even less of a part of the world than Hiccup was. "I'm the memory of Hosten Redleaf, Spirit of Autumn."

"What do you mean by 'memory'?" Hiccup asked.

"Whenever my fellows and I choose to live among humans for a single lifetime, we leave the memories of our spirit selves behind," Hosten explained. "This includes our true appearance…what you see before you here," he added, gesturing to himself. "And when we retake our spirit forms, we lose our human memories…for the most part."

"'Most part'?" Hiccup repeated.

"Some scraps of memory remain," Hosten replied. "It may be a voice or a like or dislike for something…they carry through our incarnations, spirit and human. We call these Constants." Hiccup took a moment to take the explanation in…so he was talking to someone that he was…in a past life? Hiccup had never given reincarnation much thought but this was too scary to just be a coincidence. "And, as much as I hate to say it, the leg is one as well," Hosten added with an apologetic grimace.

"But he's still got both his legs," Hiccup pointed out, pointing a thumb at the boy.

"For now," Hosten sighed. Hiccup decided he didn't want to know how or when the misfortune he'd suffered in terms of limbs would befall the boy behind him.

"So that kid…he's who I was?" he asked, glancing back at the young boy who, by now had come face to face with the dragon. The dragon itself was approaching cautiously - the boy had just kicked his knife into the lake nearby and was holding out the fish as if giving a peace offering.

"Long ago, yes," Hosten replied. "In fact, nearly a millennium. That boy's a Viking."

"You're kidding, right?" Hiccup huffed dryly. Squinting, he saw that the dragon's teeth had vanished.

"Huh…toothless…" the boy-that-was-apparently-Hiccup-from-Viking-times muttered.

"He sounds exactly like you as well," Hosten chuckled.

"I do not sound like that!" Hiccup protested. The boy continued in the background.

"I could've sworn you had…AH!" he exclaimed as the dragon snatched the fish from his hands…oh, the teeth were retractable. "…teeth."

"Poor kid…" Hiccup grimaced. Hosten only nodded in response. Hiccup attention went to the dragon which was now advancing on the boy as if looking for more food. "Dragons actually exist? I'm guessing that kid's not a spirit."

"Right on both accounts," Hosten replied. "Dragons once lived among man…it used to be that they waged war on each other. This boy…" he pointed at the boy who'd now had half a fish regurgitated onto his lap ("That's…disgusting," Hiccup remarked). "…brought peace between his people and the dragons. Sadly it was also during his lifetime that dragons vanished."

"Where did they go?" Hiccup asked. "If they're real then how comes no one's ever found any trace of them?"

"I wish I could remember," Hosten answer sadly. "That dragon there…" He indicated the black dragon who had now growled at the boy once he'd tried to touch his nose. "…is my close companion. He's followed me through my lives…he's one of my Constants…but this is the first time I've seen him in a long time."

"This their first meeting?" Hiccup asked, indicating the boy who'd tried and failed to sneak up on the dragon who was trying to get some shuteye. "The dragon doesn't look like he trusts the kid that much."

"I wouldn't if someone shot me out of the sky," Hosten remarked. Hiccup winced - so that was the cause of the missing tail fin. "But he belongs to you now."

"I have a dragon…" Hiccup exhaled in amazement. He'd always loved dragons in general…he'd never imagined that he'd actually have one. As the evening drew on, the boy Hiccup was watching wet to sit by himself and began sketching something in the dirt whilst the dragon had a nap in a nearby tree.

"I trust myself to take care of him," Hosten chuckled. Hiccup took a deep breath - he guessed he had no choice but to accept that he was in fact the new Spirit of Autumn.

"So what's the whole Guardian of Earth thing entail anyway?" he questioned. "Besides the whole season thing."

"For you, the power over Fire," Hosten explained. "Hence Toothless," he added, indicating the dragon.

"You actually named him that?!"

"He liked it. And you need to make sure you don't anger a Night Fury - they get very picky."

"A dragon species that sounds as terrifying as 'Night Fury' and you name him 'Toothless'," Hiccup summed up dryly.

"You named him."

"Like three lifetimes ago!"

Hosten laughed softly for a moment before continuing.

"Each Guardian has what is called a Centre - effectively it fuels our power," he explained. "We Earth Guardians are special in that we have two." Hiccup thought for a moment - the way Hosten had said 'Centre' made him think of the word with a capital 'C'.

"So Jack has a…Centre?" he quizzed.

"Fun is his Guardian of Childhood Centre," Hosten explained. "His Earth Guardian…or his Natural Centre is Rebirth." Hiccup nodded in understanding - by now he was done questioning things. He figured it would be better to just roll with it. "Yours Centres are Knowledge and Change. Bear in mind they are incredibly powerful."

"How do I control it?" Hiccup asked. "More to the point, how do I use it?" Hosten held his hand out, palm splayed downwards. Hiccup copied the action - it took all of his self-control not to recoil when he saw the hilt of a sword appearing in his hand. Instinctively, he closed his hand around it.

"We all carry what is known as a Conduit," Hosten explained. "This will help channel your power. Should you learn how to use your power without it, kudos to you."

"I don't get an actual lesson?" Hiccup asked sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.

"Jack didn't," Hosten pointed out. "The whole point is we learn anew every time we re-enter the Spirit Realms."

"Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that," Hiccup cut across. "If we're supposed to forget our old lives as we leave them, how is it that all of us can remember our human lives?"

"Jack regained his memories last year. Before then, he had no idea who he had been," Hosten replied. "You and your other two friends are half in this world - your mortal forms still live. As such, there is a chance for you to go back to the mortal realm."

"And we need to take out the Baba Yaga to do so," Hiccup nodded. "And to do that, we need to harness your…our power as Season Spirits," he added, correcting himself quickly. Hosten nodded sadly.

"I wish there was more I could do to help," he sighed.

"Well, some of my questions have been answered," Hiccup shrugged. "It's better than none at all. At least you didn't beat around the bush."

"It's never a good method to use," Hosten smirked. "I wish you luck."

"Thanks…gonna need it," Hiccup replied as Hosten faded from view.

But Hiccup didn't find himself going back to Burgess. Not just yet. For a moment, he stood in silent contemplation, gazing at the the sword he now held in his hands. It's appearance was basic enough - a Viking design, by the looks of things (Hiccup had never been good with history, he was guessing here), just long and light enough for Hiccup to hold comfortably. However, as Hiccup examined it, the blade glowed gently and tiny flames flickered around the hilt and although they tickled Hiccup's hand, they didn't hurt.

Turning around to watch the scene unfolding between the boy and dragon behind him, Hiccup watched curiously as the dragon walked over to the boy, examining his drawing. The dragon's curious nature made Hiccup smile and he couldn't help but head over to look as well - the boy's drawing was a portrait of the dragon.

"Pretty good," Hiccup remarked from the ground, looking up at the boy who didn't see him. The dragon suddenly walked off, causing both the boy and Hiccup to look in confusion after him…both started when he grabbed a branch and began drawing his own lines in the dirt. Standing up, Hiccup gazed around the cove, following the dragon…Toothless…as he drew something. At one point, he glanced back at the boy and Hiccup - Hiccup knew the dragon could see him and averted eye contact briefly but Toothless kept drawing. After a time, he dropped the branch and stepped back to admire his work.

Examining the ground around him, Hiccup blinked in surprise - he could just about make out a face…was it the boy? Was it him?

Wanting to get a better look, Hiccup began walking…at the same time as the boy. Without Hiccup realising, he began mimicking the kid's movements exactly. They stepped on a line at the same moment, causing Toothless to growl. They flinched and lifted their foot off the ground (Hiccup winced because it meant putting weight on his prosthetic) and Toothless smiled, pacified.

Smirking, Hiccup decided to play with the dragon for a moment. He placed his foot down and lifted it up a couple of times, as did the boy but slowly, he was fading away just as Hosten had, leaving Hiccup alone with Toothless although he didn't notice. After a while, once Toothless was on the verge of 'very ticked off', Hiccup placed his foot over the line and smiled - he wasn't idiotic enough to ignore advice like 'don't tick off a Night Fury'.

Hiccup then glanced at his feet and began stepping over the lines one by one. A surge of freedom filled him…it was the same freedom he felt whenever he danced. Without thinking, Hiccup began dancing across the drawing, spinning gracefully as he stepped over each line in turn. His eyes closed and warmth enveloped his body - this warmth was comforting but powerful and strong at the same time. After a while, Hiccup found himself coming to a stop once he'd found himself at the edge of Toothless' drawing when he felt a warm breeze down the back of his neck.

Turning around, Hiccup found himself face to face with Toothless, who was gazing at him with a look in his eyes that was kind and welcoming. The eyes felt so familiar that Hiccup couldn't help but reach his hand out…he wanted so badly to greet that face…

…Hiccup hesitated. Everything was…so surreal. Everything he knew was back in the human realm…everything he cared for. Astrid was there…his father was there…this was his only hope to be with them again but why did he feel that if he would never return to a normal life even if he made it through this?

Toothless grunted, snapping Hiccup out of his musings. His eyes narrowed questioningly, as if to ask why Hiccup was hesitating. And, somehow, Hiccup understood him.

I've waited so long…are you really you?

"I…I don't know…" Hiccup replied without thinking. Taking a deep breath, he held his hand out again but didn't quite touch the dragon's nose, instead stopping just short it it as he closed his eyes and turned his head away. Toothless blinked a few times but eventually closed his eyes in contentment. Gently, he placed his nose against Hiccup's palm.

Hiccup felt a surge pass through his fingers and down to his feet as the dragon made contact with him. Opening his eyes, Hiccup breathed deeply to keep himself calm.

Wow…he thought.

I'm glad I found you again, Toothless seemed to say as his eyes opened, glittering kindly. Hiccup smiled back and moved to pet the dragon on the nose when something caught his attention…something about himself.

His t-shirt, which he'd been wearing when the fire had struck, had been replaced with a reddish long-sleeved shirt under a tunic of a darker green colour. He had cloth wraps on his lower arms and a leather harness crisscrossing his torso. On his right foot, he wore a leather riding boot whilst his normal prosthetic had been replaced with a wood and metal spring-loaded one. He also wore dark khaki green trousers as well as knee-pads, and leather shoulder-guards were attached to the harness.

Taking a deep breath, Hiccup leant his forehead against Toothless', embracing his new self…and his one chance to return to his old self…as blue and green fire danced at their feet.