It's not the ballroom scene, but it's a little bit of fluff to enjoy :D
Moving closer
Hiccup walked deliberately slowly, keeping pace with Fishlegs, Eret and Astrid while Jack looked like he was about to start bouncing off the walls. The boy clearly hadn't lied when he said he loved to read, but teasing him with moving this slow was too much fun to resist.
"Where is it! I can get there myself and meet you there! Do I take a right or left here?"
Hiccup stayed silent, looked to the right and watched Jack take off while Hiccup turned left, hearing Jack catch up after only a few seconds.
"It's not far now," Fishlegs said from where he'd hitched a ride on Hiccup's tail.
"Why are you even looking forward to this?" Eret asked. "It's just piles and stacks and shelves of paper with useless words on them!"
"Useless words huh?" Astrid grinned. "Last time I saw you read…"
"IT WAS HORRIBLE!" the duster cried.
"Is that how it looks in the library?" Jack asked Hiccup. "Books stacked in piles? How many are there? A hundred?"
"I never bothered to count," Hiccup shrugged. He didn't mention that he had read most of the books himself, or at least glanced through them, looking for ways to break the spell by himself. But of course the previous owner of this building hadn't collected books on magic.
"A hundred is an inaccurate number," Fishlegs said.
"But there are more than twelve, right?" Jack asked.
"You'll see when we get there," Hiccup said with a tone that pressed his friends to keep Jack on his toes.
"There has to be more than a dozen books!" Jack cried, throwing his hands in the air. "You wouldn't call it a library if it was just a dozen books!" The boy gasped. "Is this why you're walking so…" Jack paused in his rant when he looked at Hiccup, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Not it's not. You wouldn't be smirking like that unless you were… Oh, God! You are pulling a prank on me, aren't you!?"
Hiccup just sighed, air misting in front of him. "You're so dramatic," he said and reached for the door at the end of the hallway they had just reached, pulling it open with some force.
The room bathed in darkness. Hiccup caught Jack's expectant face fall in disappointment, and he didn't follow as Hiccup walked inside.
The air was drier in here than in any other part of the castle, so it was the perfect place for keeping books and paper and other moist sensitive materials. But paper was also sensitive to light, so Hiccup usually kept the curtains tightly drawn. The darkness didn't really bother him either. Even as a human he'd always felt like he moved easier when there was less light.
Reaching the first high window, Hiccup used a paw to remove the books he'd used to keep the curtain tight before jerking it to the side.
Behind him, Jack gasped.
Hiccup walked over to a second window, sweeping the curtain aside, letting sunlight flood the high room, mirrors on the walls reflecting back the light to illuminate the room further, so that even the highest corners were bathing in light.
Jack slowly moved inside, jaw slack as he stared at a room that was a lot more high than wide. Staircases and ladders and balconies lined the walls that were covered with shelves filled to the brim with books, script rolls, single papers, maps and the odd roll of painting that Hiccup had never understood what they were doing in here, but hadn't bothered finding a frame for them. He supposed one of the owners of the castle simply liked to paint and some of the works ended up here. The fireplace was the star of the room though, Hiccup thought. A pillar beautifully carved out of white stone decorated with brass, the fireplace itself guarded by an iron gate shaped as vines, forming an unfamiliar crest at its centre.
They could light this fireplace, but Hiccup would prefer the one in the sitting room where he had a comfortable mat to lay on and where everyone knew to find him, most of the time.
"It's certainly more than twelve books," Jack breathed once he seemed to have taken everything in.
"Organized by genre," Hiccup said. "From happy go lucky adventure tales in that corner to everyone dies tragic romance stories down here. Tragic on the north side and happy endings are in the south."
Jack's eyes were glittering and his body was shaking with indecision on where to run first, he strongly leaned towards the happy ending side.
Hiccup found he was indecisive too, but for a different reason. He'd never done anything like it before, and Astrid would probably tear into him afterwards for taking such a risk, but that was the point. If he didn't take the risk he would never know for sure. Jack was young, and thus far he hadn't given anyone the impression of being violent; he just wasn't a fighter at all. When he'd been afraid of Hiccup he'd mostly just shied away, made himself smaller.
So Hiccup was going to take the risk, no matter what anyone else said. He just had to bait the teen.
"There is a section of fairy tales somewhere near the ceiling. Suppose that's as good a place to start as any."
Jack looked up, and started backing up in attempt to see where he thought Hiccup was pointing to.
"You can climb there by the ladders if you wish, Jack. I can meet you up there. I'd rather not bring all the books down."
"And how are you going to get up?" Jack asked, taking the bait.
As casually as he could, Hiccup kept his eyes locked at the shelves as he took a few steps closer to Jack and kneeled down, spreading his wings.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw Jack gaping wide. He closed it when he noticed Hiccup looking at him. Then Hiccup cast a quick look at his back and looked back at Jack.
The boy's eyes widened even more, but he didn't move. Hiccup decided to ignore his panicking friends by the door as he slowly turned away from Jack and back to the shelves.
"See you up there?"
He bent down lower and lifted his wings, ready to take off.
"Wait!"
If he hadn't fully expected the outburst, Hiccup knew he would have faltered. Now he just smoothly folded his wings and tried his best to look surprised.
"Can I… Will you…"
Jack stared at the dragon's back, bare from clothing, and couldn't tell if his heart was racing from nervousness at the thought of being that close to the beast, or excitement at the chance of flying on a live dragon. Hiccup had hinted that he could.
"It would save a lot of time if… you would allow… if I can be so bold… to ask you to carry me?"
The dragon blew steam from his snout. "Am I not inviting enough?"
Jack's face heated. There was definitely something he did find inviting, but if anyone asked him what that was he wouldn't be able to tell. There was also the tiny little fact that he'd never been that close to anyone outside his family. But it was quite some way to climb if he didn't get on the dragon.
Swallowing, Jack dried his hands on his sweater and walked closer, but hesitated.
"Just put your arms around my neck," the dragon said helpfully, and Jack saw his hands sticking out from underneath the wings, almost like Jack himself used to do to Mary when offering her a piggyback ride.
He was going to call it a dragonback ride from now on.
The dragon was warm. Jack hadn't really noticed it before now that he might actually be a little cold, but didn't have a lot of time to reflect on it because the dragon had grabbed his legs, hoisted him higher on his back and the floor was suddenly several meters below them.
Hiccup had aimed for the ledge of the first balcony, but he'd underestimated Jack's weight and instead of the smooth landing, Hiccup awkwardly hit the edge, scrambling to catch something to hoist himself up with. But if trial and error had taught him anything, it was that stopping to think was the worst thing you could do. So he turned, made a new leap, beat the air with his wings, caught the railing of the next balcony, jumped from there, and with only a couple minor miscalculations, he finally caught the railing of the top balcony and landed there, safe and strangled.
"You can let go now," Hiccup said and pulled at Jack's arms and legs that were holding onto him like a vice.
"Was that the first time?"
"I had a passenger? Yes, actually. You're a lot heavier than you look."
Jack's heart was hammering with adrenaline, and he was rather reluctant to let go of the dragon because he'd made the stupid mistake of keeping track of how far away the floor was moving.
"You can't read anything if your hands are on me," the dragon huffed, like a laugh.
Jack hadn't heard the dragon laugh. There had been hints of amusement, but he'd never even smiled.
The teen slowly released his hold, realizing just how hard he'd been holding on when his legs wouldn't even carry him.
"Heights frighten you?" the dragon asked.
"No!" Jack hurried to say, trying to not feel happy at the dragon's genuine tone of worry. A sound of caring he hadn't heard from anyone but his father for years. "I wouldn't have asked you to take me here if I was afraid. I just…"
"Couldn't control anything."
The boy looked up. Hiccup's features were soft with the ghost of a smile in his eyes. Then the dragon just turned to look at the shelves of books, leaving Jack to wonder why he felt so lost.
Shaking the feeling off, Jack too looked at the colourful spines on the shelves. There were some off white ones squeezed in between bright blue and dull red, brown leather and pale yellow linen. Jack crawled over to see the titles of the books on the lowest shelves. He took out a few, not recognizing any of them. There was one book with an illustration of a naked man playing the violin under a waterfall. Another had a picture of a grotesque, goat like monster with a hooked staff bending protectively over a couple of children.
"Angels can have any shape."
Jack looked up to see the dragon was looking over his shoulder. Hiccup pointed at the goat monster.
"That's a tale from beyond the abyss, about their guardian of childhood who takes away nightmares and cures illnesses."
Jack stared at the frightening beast on the cover, intrigued, and set it aside, holding up the other book.
"That's a ghost of the rivers," Hiccup said. "Apparently he lures young women to him with his music and promises of love, then he drowns them."
A ghost story? Jack quickly put it back and went on with his search. The dragon thankfully stayed quiet, seemingly content to lie on the floor, watching Jack, head and ears perking only when birds would pass by the window.
Jack pulled out several books that he put on top of the first, fully intending to read all of them. It wasn't until he pulled out a book on a higher shelf and opened it to an illustration of a man and woman in royal clothing and swords in their hands facing a dragon emerging from a cave that Jack remembered what he was even doing here.
"Have you read this one?" Jack asked the dragon.
Hiccup glanced at the book, and his eyes instantly darkened. "Yes," he said softly. "The dragon lost."
There was something guarded in those green eyes now, a tension coming over his body. Jack swallowed, looked at the illustration again before closing the book and putting it back. He wasn't looking for ways to kill the dragon; he needed something else like… like what?
The teen backed away from the bookcase to take in more of it. "This is the wrong place. Fairy tales won't tell us anything about how to break curses, just how to defeat evils."
He turned to see the dragon look at him with mild surprise.
"You're not an evil," Jack said firmly through stiff lips, hoping the beast would understand that he really did want to help him.
The dragon's features slowly softened again, his ears coming up and the lines around his eyes and nose disappeared. He still didn't smile, but he blinked slowly as his body relaxed. "Let's go to the next section then." He got up and put one foot on the balcony railing, sending Jack a playful look. "And I suppose you'll go there by yourself?"
"Hell no!" Jack cried and jumped onto Hiccup's back, crying out in frightened delight when the dragon sailed across the room, the ceiling much closer than the floor.
Eugene huddled in the hollow of a tree as the wind howled outside. His wings were tired and his body cold. It irked him that he knew he hadn't even covered a tenth of the area he was supposed to, but the weather was a powerful opponent and the lack of prey was taking its toll on the falcon.
Irritated at his weakness, the familair decided to return to Rapunzel and the castle as soon as the winds died down, getting some proper food, a fire and a bed for just one night. If he was lucky, the Enchantress would have found something that would narrow down his search; give him something concrete to look for because thus far he had nothing. Just a big, smelly heap of nothing.
At least as far as solid proof goes.
Eugene shivered. He hadn't found anything that pointed at Mother Gothel coming back, but there was no doubt she'd been here. Eugene could feel it. Sense the familiar chills in his bones.
The shivers kept running through him. Mother Gothel and Rapunzel were worlds apart, starting with their features and ending with their magic. Mother Gothel had been the master of nature magic, able to petrify anything and grow any kind of flower and grass whereas Rapunzel was more about light and transformations.
And the cold sense of Mother Gothel's magic still lingered in the grass underneath the snow, in rock formations that perhaps had been alive once or where she may have sought shelter.
Eugene stared at the cold emptiness outside the tree. He'd found no proof that Mother Gothel might be coming back yet, but there was still a lot of ground to cover and he was ill prepared for the climate.
He spread his wings, braved the winds and headed towards the capitol of the land of Sol.
Flynn Rider dressed as silently as he could, glancing out the window to make sure the street was deserted and at the bed to make sure the woman was properly covered and tucked in the blanket before he opened the his escape route and jumped out, closing the window and running around the next house, out of sight and innocent as a lamb. He just couldn't understand how Andersson could neglect his wife when she was such a mind-blowing lover.
"He must have gotten lost in the woods."
Flynn stopped and leisurely leaned against the wall. Eavesdropping on gossip was his favourite pastime.
"I don't understand. Thorston's daughter said Jackson had gone to look for his father, but now North is here but Jackson isn't. But the fair in Burgess shouldn't have ended until yesterday."
"You think it's the curse?"
"Don't talk about that!"
"But Overland apparently took the old route to Burgess; the one that forks at Iduna's Outpost."
"That should have taken him to the main road, no problem."
"Not if he took a wrong turn."
A tense silence followed, Flynn seeing it as his cue to come around the corner and straight into the circle of three pale-looking men.
"Hey friends, what's with the gloom and doom air about you? Are we expecting a blizzard?"
"Flynn! You startled me," one of the men said with a sigh and a relieved laugh.
"You went to see Overland, didn't you?" the second asked urgently.
"I did," Flynn admitted easily. "The jolly toymaker isn't himself anymore."
"Like Snotlout?"
Flynn blinked. "Pardon?"
The man who had spoken, Fisheads Ingerman, wrung his enormous hands. "Oh, you weren't around back then."
"Back when the dragons and all those people disappeared," started another man who Flynn recognized as a cousin of Hill Hoffersson (a very lovely mother of an equally lovely daughter and a brat of a son) "Snotlout was one of them, but he returned. Hasn't been himself since."
"First time I hear about this," Flynn said with a smile and draped his arms around two of the men. "How about you come with me to the inn where I can offer you some warm mead and you can tell me more?"
The outside air was cold and crisp and just what both of them needed. Jack knew he was going to spend a lot of waking hours in the library from now on, but the air was so dry there he'd gotten a headache. The dragon was with him the entire time, a mostly silent companion whose eyes strayed to the windows and the sky more often than not. Jack hadn't been able to stand it, that longing gaze that said he rather be on the other side of the walls. But to be honest, Jack also loved the outside. He had already picked out a lot of books, a wild mix of stories he wanted to read for himself and anything that sounded like it could help him figure out what curse the dragon was under.
So now they were outside, airing Philippe while they were at it. The horse had been dressed with a warm blanket, and was clearly feeling rather pretty, from the way he carried himself.
The dragon breathed deeply, blowing out a white cloud that quickly disappeared as the air chilled.
"Are you okay?"
The dragon turned to him. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Jack fidgeted. "Because… you didn't seem very happy in the library… and you said I was heavy."
He caught sight of Hiccup's hand moving towards him, but it stopped and instead went up to scratch a scaly neck.
"I don't know what I expected you to find that I haven't," the dragon admitted quietly, watching Philippe trot after the shovels throwing snow out of the way for him as fast as they could. "I don't know how to… nudge you in the right direction. But either way," he glanced at Jack, almost shyly, "you looked like you were enjoying yourself. After all; you haven't been very happy yourself since you arrived."
Not expecting that, Jack felt his face burn and his mouth stretch into a genuinely happy smile that felt like it reached his ears. It was such a little thing, just a little bit of attention, acknowledgement, and Jack felt like it was the first time in his life that someone looked at him and actually saw him. It wasn't at all like Flynn calling him out on his temper or even his father's concern when Jack was unhappy.
"I was enjoying myself," he answered the dragon quietly. "I love books. I love stories told from someone else's mind. I love imagining what kind of place the authors come from, what they've seen, how they reacted, how it turned into stories I can read."
Jack looked up at the dragon, and more than just full attention, he found understanding in those green depths. Agreement even. It made Jack's heart beat faster in pure joy.
"It's easy, don't you think?" Hiccup asked, and while it was tiny, barely there at all, he smiled. "It's easy to tell the difference between authors who writes from their own wild imagination and those who actually know what they're talking about."
"Like how some stories of love are rather flat where the same story from a different author makes you cry!" Jack nodded enthusiastically.
And this time the dragon definitely smiled. "Just so," he said.
The wind picked up, breathing cold on Jack's hot face.
Pain flashed in the dragon's eyes as he used a wing to shield himself from the gust. Ida's words from this morning broke to the surface in Jack's mind, that Hiccup was putting on a brave face, that dragons weren't good with the cold.
"We should go back inside," Jack quickly offered. "I'm sure Ida won't mind serving us some hot tea."
The dragon stared at him strangely, the smile again gone from his features and the light dying in his eyes. Jack hated it.
"You go," Hiccup said softly. "I have… to go."
It was not what he'd meant to say, but the dragon had already spread his wings and was climbing up the castle walls, leaving Jack alone with the cold loss of the happiness he'd felt a moment ago.
Hiccup reached the balcony of the west wing and slipped into the room, closing both the window and the curtains. For his inner eye he again saw Jack's rosy cheeks go pale when he suddenly realized who he was talking to. That flash of panic and anxiety and that attempt at covering up how much he didn't want to be here.
Clawing at his head in despair, Hiccup looked to the magic mirror on the table beside the rose. The mirror that showed him anything he wanted to see. The mirror that had shown him his father standing alone in the middle of his house and staring at it as if he'd never seen it before. The cursed mirror that had shown him what had happened to Ruffnut and Snotlout.
He hated it. Hiccup hated how he couldn't stop using it.
Lowering his head, cowering away from the need and hope to see Jack look for him when he knew the boy was on his way to his room if he wasn't there already, Hiccup slowly made his way over to the one who had stood by him always. The one he'd failed more than anyone.
Toothless stood there, watching him with blind stone eyes, and Hiccup fell to his knees before his best friend, resting his forehead against the stone and cried in the silence.