A World Gives and Takes: Chapter 13

As expected the task of clearing a path to the artesian well ground on without end. The trees grew more substantial the further in they travel, and the wood became very springy. The axe would just as easily bounce off the surface as bite into the thick, stringy bark. They discussed a second time trying to get Nepta to come ashore and help yank the trees from the ground, but a survey of the beast's appendages defeated the idea. Flat, wide flippers attached themselves to stubby, thick arms and legs. The dragon would barely be able to walk on land if it could make landfall at all. Thus, two men with two perpetually perturbed children worked ceaselessly in the forest and some day made little progress.

"An eight-day! We've been working for more than an eight-day and we're not even half way done!" Jack grumbled on the ninth morning as they began to prepare for another assault on the trees.

"Maybe we should take a break today?" Hiccup suggested.

"We'll knock off a noon. I think the kids need more time with Nepta… and I think he needs more time with them."

The Viking nodded. Part of living with a Guardian meant confronting a bullheadedness that rivaled any on Berk. More often than not Jack became single-minded to the exclusion of nearly everything else, including people from time to time. Hiccup knew such a mindset served him well on his home planet, and that obdurate, tenacious personality freed him from a prison more than a dozen years before. He looked at the deliciously tanned body of his mate, the hair streaked with various shades of brown gold, a body grown lean a tight from a sparse diet and a lot of work. A fire seemed to ripple in the medium brown irises, a color no other Viking possessed. Since the night the Island Miss sank, he saw a different person emerge from Jack, and one he admire a bit more than the original. In some ways, Hiccup believe he got to see the core of the Guardian.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Jack rumbled at his mate.

"Ah… yeah, standing up is going to be a bit embarrassing," Hiccup confessed.

"They're too young to realize what's going on if you don't make a big deal of it."

The both started laughing at the private pun they used in the past. It felt good to laugh, Jack thought as he chuckled. Life on the island constantly pushed them to the edge, and they needed to find the strength to push back. Laughter, as he often heard on Earth, sometimes proved the best medicine. It did balm the spirit.

"Lunch on the beach?" The Viking said while his rosy cheeks persisted.

"Hasna and Biva will love it," the Guardian agreed. "So will Nepta."

"Did you hear him keening at the beach the other day?"

"Why do you think we went for a walk?"

Not a single doubt existed that the sea dragon loved the children. If he got denied their presence for too long, he would make his displeasure known. It astounded both dragon riders. Hiccup began to openly speculate that Nepta might, in fact, be a female since he or she showed so many mothering tendencies they saw in other species. Jack tended to agree and started to shift his mental image of Nepta.

"I think we should finish putting the roof on the well house 'cause I don't think I can split any thinner planks from the logs," Jack said and returned to thinking about the primary task. "What I wouldn't give for a decent drill."

"I don't know, Jack. What you've made out of stone and junk is pretty impressive… and it works. You learned something from Gobber," Hiccup said and laid on the compliment as thickly as he could.

"Maybe but my hands still got torn to pieces working, though."

Jack glanced down as his hands turned palm up with fingers spread. A vast collection of blisters and sores stared back at him. Of course, Hiccup also garnered his own spectacular collection. They worked through the pain because not doing so put them and the children in greater danger. With that they went about getting ready for the day. They served a simple breakfast and it revealed the needed to forage for more fruit and vegetables. It seemed like Hiccup and Hasna would spend part of the afternoon fishing in the shallows while Jack and Biva entertained Nepta. The schedule for the day naturally unfolded as needs dictated. After the meal, the boy relentlessly fought against the Guardian while the safety harness got put on him. Hasna huffed when Hiccup in search of the axe.

The adults and quarrelsome children made their way down the path, half the length considerably wider then before by design, and aimed for the simple shed in the distance. To take a break from chopping down trees the Hallan and the Earthling began construction of the protective barrier around the vital source of potable water. Hiccup dug post holes while Jack did his best at fashioning posts. He then devised a drill out of a piece of rock and stick, and then made a small bow used to power the drill. While he drilled holes in the spongy wood, Hiccup cut mortices and tenions in the top of each post and cross brace. Drilling became vastly more work-intensive than cutting into the wood with one of the knives they scavenged. Sometimes the two men traded off tasks. It took two separate afternoons to erect the basic structure. Now they needed to shingle the roof.

"How quick do you think Hasna will learn handing shakes to you?" Jack inquired.

"Shakes?" Hiccup queried with a raised eyebrow.

"It's what we call wood shingles on Earth. Sorry."

"Let's just stick with shingles, and I think she'll be happy to have something to do. I almost cut off her finger the other day."

Working with children who could not otherwise be occupied became tedious, and simply abandoning them to the sea dragon did not seem a wise course regardless of how dependable Nepta proved. Thus, they continued with the same plan: Biva remained tied to one or the other man, and Hasna got assigned small and relatively pointless tasks. She appeared to understand the work she did imparted no value to their efforts. While the boy pulled desperately against the harness and leash, the girl acted grouchy and sullen as she moved branches and twigs to a pile. Thus, the children did not cooperate as they approached the shed.

"This time we're putting you to work," Hiccup told Hasna in a stern voice while leading the pile of shingles Jack created.

Each bore a small hole on one end to secure them to one of the rafter cross members. The man picked one up and handed it to the girl. The Viking held it before her. She stared at him in blatant confusion. He wiggled it around.

"Here, take this," Hiccup said and held it our.

"Hicca?" She asked and the confusion did not abate.

"Take the shingle," he told her a second time and extended his hand a bit further.

In a tentative motion the girl reached out for it. Hiccup smiled and nodded his head. Hasna took the piece of wood. She stood, dressed in the fraying remains of her wrap, holding onto the piece while staring at the man.

"Good," he said in a chipper voice and ran a hand across the top of her hair, an act that often irritated her. "Come with me."

Hasna understood that phrase and followed as he walked the short distance to the well across the firmer ground. Over probably centuries, possibly millennia, the sand mixed with the detritus of plants and trees to transform into soil. It slowly got compacted over the same span of time and became dirt covering the bedrock of volcanic stone. When man and child got to the frame of the well house, Hiccup held out his hand.

"Okay, now give it back to me," he instructed her.

Hasna resumed a confused visage.

"Give me the shingle," Hiccup replied to the expression, and then he pointed to the object in her hand. He waggled his hand again.

The girl gradually held it out. Hiccup took it from her. Then with his free hand he pointed to the line of shingles. After a few seconds, he pulled his arm back and pointed to himself. Hasna gave him a blank expression. Jack watched as his mate rethought his plan. Hiccup always made a particular frown when he recalculated. After a second or two he put the shingle down and extended an open hand to the girl. She slowly took it. Hiccup started walking back to the pile of shingles, and Hasna followed even if she did get pulled along a bit. The man and child stopped at the shingles. Hiccup pointed down at the pile. While she still seemed very uncertain of what he expected of her, Hasna bent down and grabbed one.

"Yes, good," Hiccup praised her. "Now we go back to the well."

"Well," Hasna clearly enunciated.

Together they returned to where Hiccup set down the first one. They halted. The Viking held out his hand, and then wiggled his fingers. Hasna looked at the shake of wood, looked up to Hiccup, back to the shingle, and then handed it to him.

"Good! Good! Now go get another one," he said in a happy voice. Then he pointed to the pile.

While Biva pulled against the harness tied to Jack's waist, he watched with intense curiosity as Hiccup trained Hasna on what to do. He also did it while using very little language. Given that dragon riders flying in battle or formation could not always speak to one another, Hiccup displayed a commendable versatility at improvising his training method. When Hasna did not react or respond, the Viking gently guided her back to the shingles. The girl seized one before he could direct her. When they returned to the well, she handed it to Hiccup without being asked. Biva took that moment to run in another direction, trip and fall, pick himself up, and return to his effort to escape. Thus, Jack missed how Hiccup conveyed his want to Hasna, but she trotted alone to the shingles, took hold of one, and then returned to him with desired object. Hiccup took it from her and then squatted.

"Who is the smartest girl on the island? Huh? Who? Hasna is! Hasna is the smartest girl!" He loudly commended her, swept her into a hug, and swung her back and forth.

Hasna squealed with delight. When Hiccup sat her down, her dark eyes sparkled with apparent happiness and pride. Jack grinned at the display. It seemed years and years of teaching some of the most dimwitted Vikings to ride dragons served him well when dealing with a small child who did not speak Berkian. On the other hand, Biva seemed more than willing to fill the role of a slightly thick Viking in the way he refused to give up his struggle against the harness and leash despite what the best evidence offered.

"Okay, go get a shingle!" Hiccup asked the Hasna.

Without missing a beat, the girl turned and ran to the shingles. She dutifully returned with one. For a second time Hiccup gregariously rewarded the girl. The senior dragon rider recalled how the trainees often responded better to praise than constant correct. At least it worked that way for his mother. Hiccup routinely used yelling at the new riders as a way to vent his frustrations regarding a whole host of issues. At the same time, he wanted the riders to respect the sound and tone of his voice. In battle they may not understand the words, but they would pay attention to the tone. However, dragons learned in a different manner, and Hiccup used that method with the girl. Bonding with the flying creatures could be enhanced with direct but gentle coaching. The same seemed to apply to children. He glanced at Jack, and the Guardian beamed a smile at him.

"Be quiet, you," he mumbled, and his face split into a smirk.

With Hasna acting as a runner between Jack who would provide the materials and Hiccup who would lash them to the well house framing, a more or less efficient team emerged. Sometimes Hasna got distracted by a pretty bug or leaf she happened to just notice, but for the most part she took constant part in the construction. Jack cut new shakes from the planks he prepared the day before, and drilled a small hole into one end. A race ensued wherein Hasna attempted to exhaust the supply of singles faster than Jack could produce them. She won every few minutes. In the meanwhile Biva settled down and played in the sand with scraps of wood Jack tossed over his should.

"Ja! Wooh!" Hasna exclaimed at one point and held our her hand.

Jack lifted a just finished shingle, jerked it back when she tried to grab it, and said: "Wood, Hasna. Say wood… w-o-o-d-d-d."

"Wooh," she grunted at him.

"Deh… deh… woo-deh, woo-deh… wood," he carefully sounded out the word as he saw done on a television program for small children that used fuzzy puppets to teach diction and word as well as the alphabet, colors, and numbers. "Wood.

"Woo-dt," Hasna rejoined because she regularly played this game with him. "Woo.. dt."

"Yes, wood. Good girl!" he said an ruffled her hair, and that caused her to throw him an annoyed frown.

He handed her the piece. She snagged it and ran back to Hiccup who could not keep pace with her, either. Jack stood and stretched. His back, biceps, neck, and shoulders started to cramp form working at such an awkward angle. At some point, the Earthling thought, he would need to build a crude work bench. With that idea in mind, the lean man reached down and scooped the dirt covered boy from the ground. Biva grunted in displeasure, but could not escape from the sure grip of the Guardian. Thus, he got carried to where Hiccup attempted to fasten the shingles to the roof frame with lengths of stringy bark pulled from the trees they cut down and denuded. Hiccup got most of one course finished on both sides. His fingers looked raw and red.

"Slow going?" Jack commented and held onto the squirming child who wanted to be set down.

"I got more splinters in my finger than I can count, and getting this fuzzy string through holes is almost impossible half the time. Plus that terrible terror keeps pushing me to go faster and faster," the Hallan complained, and threw a long glance at Hasna who seemed too impatient for words.

"Want to switch? I'm about done from the waist up."

"Yeah, but can you reach the next row?"

"Ha, ha," Jack fake-laughed and then looked at the progress. He could reach the second and third course without needing a ladder or scaffolding. "You are so funny sometimes I just… just can't laugh."

"The Spirit of Fun can't laugh?" Hiccup rejoined in mock amazement.

The Earthling's eyes went wide as he softly said: "You haven't called me that in years."

The Viking shrugged and replied: "Never needed to once the Defenders got back together. Astrid's kids brings it out in you… and the Thorstons."

"They scare me."

"Ruffnut and Tuff…"

"No, their kids. They're just as addled as their parents. You do know that, right?"

Hiccup began to laugh, and Jack soon joined in. Although each Thorston child could be extremely loony in their own unique fashion, none reached the level of their surname parents. Ruffnut and Tuffnut appeared to exhaust the Thorston reserve of outlandishness. As they laughed, Hiccup began to reach for the rope connecting him to Biva.

"Nah, leave it," Jack dissuaded him. "You'd be surprised how much he gets in the way when I'm trying to drill a hole. Biva's got a knack for knowing just when to pull and mess up the drill alignment."

"You sure?" His husband inquired just in case.

The Guardian nodded. He meant what he said and glanced down at the boy who decided to sit in the middle of puddle and play with mud. He happily splashed, and the mud barely looked visible against his sun-darkened dark skin.

"That'll keep him busy 'til lunch," Jack promised.

"Yell if it gets to be too much," Hiccup ordered. Then he turned to Hasna and said: "You're with me. Come on."

Before he left, Hiccup handed Jack the last shingle in his possession. Jack studied the pile of fuzzy string they made the night before as they planned on how to attack the shakes to the rails. Hiccup's complaint that the stray fibers hanging off the sides popped into his mind. His eyes searched the ground, and he found what thought would serve: a short, think stick. From there he grabbed a piece of string and punched it through the hole with the stick. It made him wonder why Hiccup did not think of it. However, years of living and working in the same shop as the man provided a partial answer. Hiccuped tended to get stuck on a process even when it proved less than efficient if he used it too often. Fartbritches and Mouldy routinely grumbled about Hiccup making them complete tasks using the slowest method possible. Jack smirked as he applied himself to tying a square knot in the string and then another one. Over time, he thought, moisture would make the string swell and tighten. The work continued with Hasna setting a grinding pace.

Hiccup watched as Jack got absorbed in the process. He growled in frustration when he saw his husband using stick to push the string through the opening. His splinter-riddled fingers throbbed and it only added further recriminations for his failure to consider a better method. Thus, he studied the process he used to drill holes in the planks, and realized Jack already figured it out. The blunt end of the drill sat in a depression in a fist-sized block of wood held in the hand, the dill bit against the work piece, and he sawed back and froth with the bow that turned the shaft. The stone bit got caught in the grain from time to time, but the drill actually performed fairly well. Above him Hasna huffed as she waited for him to finish a shake so she could run it to Jack.

"My father would've loved you," Hiccup wryly commented to the girl. Then he turned his attention to drilling another hole.

Biva grew bored of the mud puddle after about half an hour, and so he resumed his attempts to pull free of Jack. Used to the sudden strain against his midsection, Jack kept working. The boy's insistence grew by leaps and bounds. Just as the Guardian planned to address Biva, Hasna let out a terrified scream, and Hiccup's yelling reverberated through clearing. Yet of all the sounds, Jack heard Biva's panicked cry that began and almost instantly diminished, and the gut-wrenching shriek followed by a crunching sound. The Earthling whipped around in time to see two tiny legs fall from the bloody maw of a creature that looked like a cross between a crocodile, a snake and a dragon, sans wings. Only orange-yellow eyes and now red-stained teeth showed against the greenery. The body of the creature blended fully with the foliage.

"NO!" Jack yelled at the top of his lungs as his brain struggled to make sense of the situation. "NO! NO!"

Before he could bellow a fourth time, Jack got jerked violently toward the beast. A red mouth stretched long and terrible, with identifiable pieces of Biva still on its tongue, opened to take a bite as the man got dragged to beast. Anger, horror, panic, and a deep sorrow exploded in Jack's chest. Tears streamed down his face as he saw the remains of the little boy he came to love as dearly as if he fathered the child himself. Behind his initial emotions came a wave of fury the size of Halla itself. His vision started to fog as he drew closer and closer to the damnable animal.

Hiccup stopped running toward Jack, and then he grabbed a hold of the girl. She continued to scream in pure terror. The man dragged her back. Tear also flowed from his eyes, but a greater sense of caution took over as he watched his mate, his husband, start to glisten with light. Hiccup yelled out to the man he loved as the body stiffened. Jack did not respond. He seemed unable to move.

The voices of Hiccup and Hasna became mute, as did every other sound in the jungle. Jack never got struck by lightning in his life, even in his immortal life, yet he felt as though it happened. His body began to pulse with tremendous energies. It robbed him of the ability to flex either arm or leg, or move at all. Through a haze he saw the creature preparing for another meal. Renewed anger, rivaled only when Jack saw his beloved sitting in an Earth prison, coursed hotly through him. The surrounding world turned white as a supernova. Then it became cold. The rope dropped from around his waist as his fingers curled around a familiar cylindrical shape.

Jack Frost, full of grief and rage, emerged from the brown-haired slender man.

"NO!" He yelled again as he heart broke and pain unlike any he ever endured wracked every millimeter of his body. His arm instinctively held held out the crook of wood that dripped with frozen vapors. "WHY?"

The word thundered out of him. Right behind it a blast of frost power greater than any he ever unleashed on Halla lanced out of his arm and staff. The snarling creature looked prepared to leap, and then it froze. In the most literal of terms the beast became frozen solid as the wave of ethereal energies washed over it and plunged the animal into temperatures two-thirds of absolute zero. The trees around it froze. The plants sprouted frost and ice like a time-lapsed piece of film. The sandy ground became as solid as granite. The air itself groaned under the pressure of the power Jack Frost unleashed in his fury. The snake-dragon thing fell from the tree and shattered on the ground.

Hiccup saw the transformation, and he saw the crook appear. Having seen his husband in his elemental form and lay waste to an entire prison, he knew better than to remain where he stood holding Hasna. He carried the shrieking girl and ran down the path toward the beach. Misery over the death of the boy etched itself on his heart, but he could not lose Hasna as well. The Viking pumped his legs with all his might. Despite the speed he achieved, Hiccup felt the intense cold roll over him, and he pressed the girl closer to his bare chest. The man ran until he reached the water and then spun on one heel to his right and continued to sprint until it felt as though his lungs would burst from the effort and collapsed. When he did trip, Hiccup curled his body around Hasna as they rolled across the sand and cold rolled across them. His labored breathing raised a plume of frozen vapor.

"Jack," he whispered.

Hiccup bent his head into the form of Hasna and began to sob.

The beast lay on the ground nothing more than small chunks of frozen reptile. His anger and sorrow created a wreck in his mind, and his body burst with another wave of frost power. Everything around him glistened white as ice crystals formed on everything. The monumental level of power he released became difficult to control as his emotions ran wild. Jack hovered in the air and fought to contain himself. His mind replayed the death of Biva over and over, and sometimes it add glimpses of IceSpike's final moments for added spite. A new, violent explosion of frost power coated the surrounding area in another layer of ice. The air itself turned as arid as a desert as every mote of moisture got consumed. Then the cold turned inward.

"No, gods, no," he cried and tears froze on his cheeks as he heard a sound he learned to dread during his first half-year on Halla.

The song of Aita rose. Not far off from where the shattered remains of the creature lay strewn about, a pitch-black void opened in the air and hovered inches from the ground. Jack saw the constantly shifting form of The Breathless one. It called out the commands to the tiny, barely visible patch of light that undulated toward the hole in reality. Jack felt anew his powerlessness against one as ancient and formidable as Aita. In less than a minute the final form of Biva completely departed the world, and Jack felt the utter loss of the boy in the very marrow of his bones. Then Aita and the void disappeared as though neither ever existed in that spot.

Ever so slowly Jack Frost drifted to the ground. He fell to his knees. Then he fell over. He hugged the crook to his body as though it might save him from the anguish that clawed at his heart. The Guardian cried in his desperate want to save Biva from such a horrible fate. The love he held for the boy burned in him like acid. The limitations of his mortal form wailed in his mind. He never experienced such an exquisite pain in his original youth. It consumed his entire form.

On the beach Hiccup held tight to Hasna as he also sought some way to express his grief. Hasna continued to cry and tremble. With a monumental effort in his mind, the man pushed away his own sorrow and focused on the girl. Her needs outweighed his as she just got deprived of the last piece of her real family. She became a true orphan. Hiccup held her tight.

"We're safe. We're safe," he told the girl through a throat that nearly choked him to death. "Jack saved us."

"Ja?" She whispered the name between sobs.

"Yes, Jack… the real Jack," Hiccup said as much to himself as to her.

In that admission the Viking's woe intensified. He witnessed how much Jack came to love both the boy and the girl in their short time on the island. Moreover, the Guardian clearly still existed in the Earthling, and the destruction of the child would extract a heavier price from that part of his husband. The whole reason for Jack's being on his home world would come crashing down his head. Hiccup started to feel a visceral hatred for the beast that took Biva from them. Without releasing Hasna, the man struggled to his knees and then to his feet. While clutching the girl tightly to him, he turned to head back into the jungle. Hiccup stop as his mind went momentarily numb as he took in the sight.

Cold seeped into the soles of the Viking's feet, but he ignored the sensation. Stretching at least fifty feet on either side of the path he used for their escape, the jungle stood motionless and frozen in the truest sense of the word. The sounds of cracking and tinkling rippled out of the frozen demesne. What looked to be at least an inch of ice coated everything. Pieces of leaves and twigs snapped from branches and plants under the weight of the thick rime. He started to walk toward the path, but then his feet began to freeze and stick to the ground. Hiccup knew all about frostbite and frost-burn, and he retreated to warmer sand. He could not take his eyes from the effects of his husband's power. It exceeded anything Hiccup saw in the past.

A Guardian from Earth, the Spirit of Fun, did not move. He stared at the bits and pieces, the frozen remnants, of the creature and knew the last physical remains of Biva got mixed into the detritus. Even if he found every last molecule, Jack knew he could not bring the boy to life. Aita already claimed him. Only the icy remains and the memories of the child survived. It made Jack feel hollow and useless. He clung to the staff, one that no longer felt a completely natural part of him, and hoped it would save him from drowning in misery. It seemed parts of him died inside in reaction.

A rumble of thunder sounded overhead, and Jack snapped his eyes shut.

"Dost thou forget the lessons of thy past, Jack Frost?" A voice long absent from his ears resounded.

Jack shook his head from side to side.

"In thy guise of blood, bone, and flesh, thou art even less able…"

"Shut up!" Jack ground out through his teeth.

"Impertinent whelp!" Thursar H'rim spat at him.

The fear, grief, and rage trapped in Jack's body found an outlet. It did not even take a thought for the cold winds to lift him from the ground and propel the immortal high into the sky in the blink of an eye. The Sickle of Elada, now of Noro, gleamed in his hand like polished silver. His body drank in energies at terrifying rate and filled every last space within him. Jack lifted into the upper troposphere where Lord of Winter took refuge from the heat of the midworld. As he approached a gigantic face appeared in the clouds.

"And what dost thou intend?" Lord of Winter growled at him.

"Only this!" Jack shouted at him.

A few short years before Jack learned how to be a conduit for titanic forces in the battle against Etuchaand. He tapped into that memory, one where he existed in two different forms at the same instant, and held out his arms. A wave of force unlike any he ever created sprang out of his body. It grew in intensity as it moved forward, consuming the very energies of Thursar H'rim, and the clearly visible wave that distorted everything in it's path struck the enormous visage of the Hallan elemental. It roared in fury. Lord of Winter sent a blast of frigid air at Jack, and Jack's body absorbed it. Then he returned the blast.

"Thou dares…" Thursar H'rim started to bellow at him.

"Yes!" Jack shouted right back. "I don't need… any… of your… pontificating at me. Biva is dead and I did nothing… to… defend… him."

Pain that could engulf Earth welled up in Jack. In reaction he began to absorb the local energies to keep from falling into the dark pit that opened in him the first time he met Aita and never closed. Into it Jack poured every mote of energy he could reach. Lord of Winter howled again. It only took a brief second for the Guardian to realize he hurt the Hallan elemental man. Jack halted his intake and looked at his outstretched arms. The blue of his hoodie got completely covered with frost as did his pants. His skin looked alabaster. To his own eyes he appeared as nothing more than enraged specter, a wraith of frost and fury: a demon of winter.

"What hast thou become, Jack Frost?" Thursar H'rim asked in a cautious manner.

Jack's head twitched back and forth as he continued to study his body and clothing.

"If thou seeks a feud with me, then surely…" Lord of Winter began to threaten.

"I will pull you from the sky and lay waste to your very essence," Jack cut into the voice.

"Thou wouldst harm the children of the one who gives thee sanctuary?"

"I will protect the mortal children of this planet from your thoughtlessness… your impunity, Thursar. I would say your heart is cold, but you don't even have one."

A tense silence ensued, and then Thursar H'rim said: "And thou would lay waste to this world in doing battle with me. Thou would slay every living thing down below to assuage thineself of thy grief. Thou art as much a monster as thee would make of me."

Lord of Winter landed a severe blow against Jack. The Guardian recoiled and drifted back from the mountain of a face that looked disorganized from the two attacks. He stared at his hand clasped the crook. The powerful cold winds swept around and through him, and he drank in the nascent energies to try and lend steadiness to his mind.

"Thou hast become unmade by the touch of the Flesh Hungerer, Jack Frost. The power of a first-born of Noro resides in thee, and yet thou art overcome by mortal wants. This is not natural, and thou becomes more like the being from thy world thee and thy comrades banished. Even now in this moment I do not recognize thee, Jack Frost, as the stripling that first arrived in my skies."

Jack's head snapped upward, partially propelled by heartbreak and rage, as he considered how to answer the elemental being. In the back of his mind he grew ill at the notion Thursar H'rim compared him directly to Aletha. Lord of Winter all but called him an abomination.

"I confess no knowledge resides in me of what thee suffers, and for this I am grateful since it would make of me a terror unto this world. I am content to bring the snows of winter, but thee… what power dost thee truly seek, Jack Frost? Wouldst thou again harbor senseless dreams of bringing defeat to The Breathless One? Hast thee become that mad in thy mortal follies?"

The Guardian opened his mouth to hurl invective at Lord of Winter, but nothing came out. Despite all the emotion racing through his veins, a piece of his mind heard what the Hallan elemental said. While it did not erase the anguish from his heart, it cooled his rage. Then his brain told him another important fact: he left Hiccup and Hasna defenseless on the island. For three heartbeats he stared Thursar H'rim. Then Jack departed in silence and flew back to the island. For the first time he saw it sat apart from a larger chain, yet he could not see a major landmass close by. A chill went through Jack when he reached warmer air. Somehow he knew it emanated from inside.

Jack returned to spot where he lost Biva and destroyed the creature. The surrounding jungle remained frozen even though the ice started to gleam with thaw in the blazing tropical heat. He turned in a circle and scanned the devastation he caused. Jack paused when he spied another figure hovering at the edge of the small clearing of the well. He stared at Isemaler.

"I can see you," Jack said in a heavy voice.

"Are you going to hurt me?" She warily asked.

"No. That's… passed now."

The image of a young woman, barely out of her girlhood, dressed in a blue and somewhat furry jacket with a hood thrown back and stout brown pants drifted through frozen foliage. Jack noted she did not wear anything on her long feet. He also noticed her eyes remained fixed on the staff. However, he did not hand it to her when she got near enough.

"It feels strange to me now," Jack answered one of the questions in her eyes.

"It doesn't belong to you," Isemaler gingerly stated in a light, high tenor voice. The very pale blue irises of her eyes flicked around as she studied him

"It did… once, and I think that's why it came to me."

Her eyes widened and she said: "Then you really are the First. But I thought… you're mortal now."

"Not completely. I can never be totally mortal. This will always live within me. It's the only way I can survive being on Halla… no matter what form I take," he theorized aloud for her benefit.

Isemaler drifted to one side of him, closer to the staff, and narrowed her eyes.

"Ask your questions," Jack prompted her even though he wanted nothing more than to return to the hut and cry for a year over the loss of Biva.

"You attacked Lord of Winter. How?"

"To be honest… I don't know. I knew I could do this," and he glanced around the iced glade, "but not what I did up there. I don't think my powers are tied to this world anymore. It's why the Sickle feels odd to me."

"Sickle?" Isemaler queried.

"I guess it's not called that anymore. When I used the staff on my world, it was called the Sickle of Elada… after my creator, but it belongs here now."

Around them ice started to melt as the oppressive tropical heat began to bear down on everything. Pieces of it fell to the thawing ground and smashed. Neither Jack nor Isemaler flinched as it happened. Jack realized he killed a large portion of the jungle on the north side of the island. It would take at least a decade to return to anything close to normal, he thought. It made him feel all the more sad about his actions and reactions. He frowned.

"Why did you do this? Do you hate this forest and this heat?" His second successor inquired.

"No, a creature here killed a child I loved very much," Jack told her and stared at the pieces of snake-dragon thing that ended Biva's life. "It tried to kill me, too, and I… reacted."

"Saving yourself. I understand that," Isemaler commented.

"No. It was… pain… emotional pain and hate drove me."

Isemaler eyed him.

"I've know children who died in the past, but never one I… totally loved. It hurts so much," Jack said and slowly whispered the words. "I hated that thing 'cause it killed Biva. I wanted it dead."

"When the Tat'atch-ka came for my people, I felt the same way. I tried to stop them…"

Her voice caught, and Jack said: "And they killed you for defending your family."

"Threw me in the water. I started to freeze… sink. A person can't live in the water," Isemaler blankly stated.

"And Noro gave you the power of Isemaler."

She nodded, and added: "But I did not hate them. I just wanted the Tat'atch-ka to go away and leave us alone."

"Being a mortal changed me. Over twelve years now I lived on Berk… this world and… and I'm something different from when it started. It seems… so much longer than the three-hundred and fifty years I spent as Guardian…"

"Guardian?"

"What they call me back on my home world," he explained.

"You keep saying that. Why?" Isemaler questioned.

"Home world?" He rejoined, and she nodded. "Because I'm not from this planet… not even this universe. I'm from someplace so far away I can't even describe it to you… and, before you ask, I got here through magic."

"So are you more like them or more like us? You came here to help the children… or at least that's what Noro told me, but she never said you were from some place else and could do what I saw you do to Thursar."

In Isemaler's question and statements a disquiet Jack never knew existed took shape. It begged the question about who he became. He wordlessly stared at the new incarnation of the Hallan Spirit of Winter Joy. He could feel her presence and a brimming optimism tried to infect him. Jack looked down at his hands and at the crook. He slowly held it out to her. When she touched it, a power similar to his yet somehow foreign rippled across his pale skin. He watched as Isemaler physically reacted to the seemingly same sensation. Jack released the crook because he knew it no longer belonged to him and his awaited his return to Earth. The power into which he tapped began to immediately recede. Isemaler grew fainter by the moment until she disappeared in the sunlight. Her final question stayed with him as intense cold began to soak through the soles of his feet. Jack began to quickly trot across the ice toward the beach, and he felt hunted by thoughts.

When he reached the sandy beach, he stood warming his feet. Tears began to leak from his eyes as his heart remained broken at the death of Biva. He stared at the path he just left and wondered if he could ever use it again knowing what memory lay at the end. He recalled an old Algonquin saying that the killing of one person kills an entire universe. Jack at last understood what it really meant. All Biva could have been, the people he would have influenced, and the children he would help make all died within him. All that promise disappeared between the teeth of a beast. The knowledge did not settle Jack's emotions. It seemed like a small age passed while he considered what the death of the small boy meant to him.

"Jack?" Hiccup whispered the name when he came upon the stationary from of his mate now in his mortal skin.

Jack heard the Viking walk in the sand as he approached, and turned his face to look at his husband. Red, puffy eyes gazed back at him. Hasna sat curled in his arms. Part of him rejoiced she survived, but he realized she survived alone without her brother. His eyes drifted back to the frozen devastation of the jungle.

"Did I become a monster, Hiccup?" He asked.

"No, you're not a monster, Jack. I would've done the same thing," Hiccup replied.

"I… attacked Thursar."

"I heard it, but that doesn't make you a monster."

"Then what am I?" Jack begged as a fresh set of tears raced down his face.

"A man who loves… who can get hurt through that love… just like everyone on this planet."

Before more words got said, Hiccup wrapped an arm around him. Jack nestled into the comfort of his mate. They cried together over their loss. He felt the form of Hasna between them.

"Ja?" She mumbled his name.

"Hasna?" He answered in a voice made coarse by sorrow.

"Beev?"

"In our hearts now, sweet girl."