Author's Note:

**This chapter was REALLY long, so I broke it up into three parts. A word to the wise, it makes more sense read in order. :P

While I stick very closely to the HTTYD movie/TV show lore, I take liberties with the LoZ elements. Please read with an open mind, as if this were a new game.

New chapters on Wednesdays. The whole thing, 30 chapters plus Prologue, is written and will be posted!

Dusty road lay before and behind the two weary travelers, winding ever upwards around the mountain. Smoke from the Lost Woods miles below cut through the hazy sky like a tear in a faded tapestry.

Hiccup trudged up the steep path. Occasionally he glanced at Link who hadn't said a word since leaving the Woods and appeared to be hiding a limp. Hiccup wanted to help him, but he didn't know how. Every time Hiccup was about to say something, Link's tight lips and furrowed brow made him swallow whatever he was going to say. The fierce determination in those icy blue eyes scared away any further attempts.

It was just the two of them on this side of the mountain. The trees had given up to scrub brush miles ago, and only tiny creatures scuttled from rock to burrow. A screech of a distant eagle echoed off the mountainside.

Hiccup rubbed his dry hands to protect them from the wind and swallowed more often than necessary in futile attempts to wet his throat. The soreness in his stump leg had steadily grown from annoying to borderline painful, and Hiccup realized he hadn't walked this long since he'd lost his foot. Toothless had always scooped him onto his back as if he sensed his human's discomfort, saving him the hassle of asking for help or the pain of going without. Hiccup sighed and smiled. Toothless was pretty great. Wonder what he was up to…

"Thanks—" Hiccup jolted at the break of silence. "—for saving Saria last night." Link kept his eyes on the ground.

"Oh, it's no problem," Hiccup said, rubbing his neck. "You would have done the same for me."

"But that's just it. It's not the same. You think this is all some dream, right? That none of this is real?" Hiccup shrugged with a weak smile. Link persisted, "Why would you risk your life like that?"

"Well, say this is a dream. If I die, I'll just wake up, right?"

"That's not how I've heard it."

"Oh."

"So…?" Link made eye contact. This time, Hiccup looked away.

"I don't know," Hiccup shrugged. "It seemed the right thing to do."

Link smiled, but he felt an invisible stab in his heart. Risking his life for a stranger. Now that's what a hero would do. They continued in silence, the only sound being the crunch of dirt under their feet. The wind breathed against the mountain in long mournful gasps.

Link cleared his throat. "So… Saria says you ride a dragon? Now that sounds like a dream."

Hiccup's eyes brightened. "You have no idea!"

The miles melted away, and the sound of conversation echoed off the craggy path. Link was enraptured as Hiccup recounted the first time he took Astrid on a flight.

"So, there we were, just the two of us, hundreds of feet in the air, on the back of a wild dragon who had no intention of helping me look good in front of her." Hiccup smiled wistfully. "I was certain she was gonna kill me if pure mortification didn't do it first. But as it turns out, that was actually the first time we connected."

"Near death experiences will tend to do that," said Link.

"Yeah," Hiccup chuckled. "We've had a few of those happen to us over the years." Whether he was clawing out of a cave-in, facing a Whispering Death, battling a band of dragon-hating Vikings, or in any other kind of danger, every time, Astrid was there by his side. He felt the dirt under his foot and the cracking of his dry skin, and his smile faded. Absent-mindedly, he rubbed the bracer. His fingers found their own peaks and valleys as they ran over the three gems.

"Do you regret it?"

"What?" Hiccup asked.

"You said you heard someone calling for help, right?" Hiccup nodded. "If you had ignored it, you wouldn't be here."

Hiccup shook his head. "Nah. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to go home, but…" He looked around the scenery—mountains, dozens of them stretching for miles like waves frozen in place, and beyond those, plains, valleys: a vibrant landscape of golds and tans. It was completely different from the lush islands and vast waters of the Archipelago, and yet the arid landscape had a beauty of its own. He continued with one of his twitchy shrugs. "This place isn't so bad. And if I didn't come here, I never would have met you. And you seem pretty cool."

Link chuckled. "Thanks, Hiccup." This round-eared kid was weird and wide-eyed enough to remind Link what beauty remained in the world. Wide-eyed enough to get himself killed. Someone had to protect him; might as well be him.

Looking up the path, Hiccup said, "So, we have to get past this to get to the Sage?" He gestured to a massive doorway taller than the forest shrine. What he now recognized as Hylian characters were chiseled above. Hiccup guessed they must be at least as tall as him to be read at this distance. The door was decorated with an elaborate mural of interconnected metal pieces, weaving in and out of each other, but giving the impression of a woman with hands clasped over her chest and wings outstretched behind her.

"The Hall of Heroes," Link said gravely.

"Have you been here before?"

"No." In fact, in all his previous travels to the Sage, Link had taken longer roads and completed harder challenges just to avoid coming here. He would have done the same this time if the Forest Path hadn't been destroyed the previous night.

Link took a breath, put his hands on the door, and pushed. Nothing happened. He put his shoulder to the door and pushed again. Nothing. He took a step back. "Okay. It's locked."

"How do we get it unlocked?"

"We solve the puzzle." Link squinted up the doorway and pointed towards the top. "See that?"

He whipped the bulblin bow off his back. Sliding an arrow against the shaft, he aimed at a tiny blue opal sparkling like a dew drop. With a twang, the arrow flew and hit the gem dead in the center. The boys watched the arrow bounce off and fall with an anticlimactic thud at their feet.

"That usually works," Link grumbled, picking up the arrow. He tried to fire again, but the rough bow snapped in two. "Bulblin trash," he muttered and tossed it to the side.

Hiccup remembered what Link had said on the cliff: Items come and go. He'd seemed confident they'd be able to find another shield—which probably would have come in handy against the shadow beast—but Link was still without one.

Hiccup shook off the guilt and analyzed the metal work on the door. Taking a step closer, he put his cheek on the door and looked sideways. "There are gears underneath." He pulled on the bottom of one of the wings. Slowly, the metal gave way, sliding on unseen ball bearings. Hiccup pulled it as far as it would go, revealing part of a design underneath. "Link, try sliding the other piece." Link walked to the other door and did the same. The second piece shifted, revealing the hidden design: three golden triangles stacked on each other to create one giant triangle. As soon as the design was formed, the metal plates clicked into place.

Hiccup smiled at Link. "That wasn't so hard."

"Don't get cocky," Link warned. "We're not through yet."

They pushed together, and the doors swung open. Daylight filtered into a narrow hallway. Half a dozen blue sconces glowed along the wall, and a pair flanked the grated door at the far end. They stepped across the threshold. The front doors silently swung shut behind them.

Hiccup immediately felt the hair on the back of his neck tingling and noticed a crackling noise coming from a stone ball sitting on a short pedestal next to him. From between the slits in the stone casing, the ball glowed yellow, and the same yellow light ran down a groove in the floor to a box on the left side of the door. The right side of the door was identical—same box, groove, and pedestal. The only difference was that the right side was missing a glowing orb, and the groove didn't glow.

Leaping over the electrical path, Hiccup approached the grated door. There was no handle or hinges to be seen. He pushed and pulled on it. It didn't budge. He frowned then turned his attention to the other parts of the room.

As Hiccup studied the ceiling, Link took a step back and scanned the floor. In the corner next to the front doors, he found what he was looking for: a conspicuous raised paver. He stepped on it, and it sank a few inches. Then rolling out of the wall and bouncing into the middle of the room was another glowing ball. Link stooped to pick it up.

"Wait!" Hiccup shouted and ran towards Link. "Be careful around that. You don't want to get zapped."

Link grinned. "Thanks, Hiccup. This isn't my first time." Link grabbed the ball, careful only to touch the stone bands encasing it. Gently, he set it on the empty pedestal. A line of yellow energy raced from the ball through the groove in the floor to the box. The door immediately sprang open.

"Yeah!" Hiccup jumped in the air. Link couldn't help but smile as he led them through the doorway. Hiccup's enthusiasm was infectious.

The next room was empty. Reliefs of three women with their arms outstretched decorated the walls, leading towards the closed door on the opposite side. On the ground, beautiful pavers with four designs—a bird, a diamond, a sword, an arrow—repeated randomly all the way to the closed door.

Hiccup took a step forward. Suddenly, the floor rippled as if it were made of water. The tiles at the far end flipped in sequence until they reached Hiccup and Link. The boys jumped back. After all the tiles had turned, they came to rest. Hiccup gingerly touched the same paver, one with the arrow design. Again, the tiles rippled.

"How about you try?" Hiccup said. Link took a step. The pavers remained still.

"That's it! You got it!" Hiccup shouted.

Link looked down between his feet. "Only step on the diamond stones." Link stepped on the next three diamonds. On the fourth, the tiles rippled, and he had to run back to keep from falling over.

"Well, that's at least part of it," said Link.

Hiccup looked across the floor's layout and then at the pavers Link had stepped on. "Wait a second." He ran back to the first room. Link trotted behind, allowing himself to wince with the uneven gate.

"I thought it was just decorative," Hiccup said as he pointed up. Running along the top trim of the wall were rows of the tiny diamond shapes and on the ceiling itself was a grid. A zigzagging pattern like a sheep on fire snaked its way across the grid, but clearly led from one end to the other.

"Go on. I'll call out the pattern," Hiccup said.

Link jogged back to the start of the pattern. From the other side of the grated door, Hiccup called out. "Okay, forward three." Link started on the first and took two steps forward. "Two times to the right." Link looked to the right. There wasn't a diamond immediately to the right.

"You sure, to the right?"

"That's what the map says."

Link skipped over the sword and bird tiles and made it to the two diamond ones. The tiles remained calm.

Link grinned. "I think we're getting this."

Three steps forward. One step back. One to the left. And on and on. Link was grateful Hiccup couldn't see him jumping only on his strong leg. The climb up the mountain had exacerbated the injury he sustained from the battle with the shadow beast, but he couldn't justify taking a potion to heal it. Not for something that small. He'd just have to keep on gritting through it.

The directions continued until Link had nearly made it across. "Okay, Hiccup," he called. "I think I got it."

"Wait, Link! That's not the end." Too late. Link had already jumped the remaining two pavers and landed next to the door. As soon as his feet touched the ground, though, the tiles began to flip. He lost his footing, and the tiles tumbled him all the way across the room until he lay a little groaning mess back at the start.

"Are you okay?" Hiccup asked, rushing over.

"Never better," Link groaned as he pushed himself back up. "Let's try that again."

Starting from the very beginning, Hiccup called out directions till his throat went dry. By the end, Link had nearly crossed the hall at least four times. His strong leg ached, and the injured ankle throbbed almost as severely. Finally, Hiccup said, "Two steps forward. That's it."

Link stepped forward twice. The second paver sank a little deeper than the rest. He froze as he heard the familiar rumble of tiles about to flip. He jumped towards the door just in time. The ripple surged through the tiles, but this time, they remained face down, the distinguishing features gone.

Link took a tentative step back on the pavers. They remained in place. "I think it's safe."

On the far side of the room, Hiccup also gingerly touched one of the blank tiles. Nothing happened. Even so, he sprinted across the floor.

"Well, that was something," Hiccup said. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's keep going." Link waved his hand as if brushing away the comment and stooped under the doorway, but Hiccup was certain he saw him wince with every other step.

Author's Notes:

Thanks to Ari Lewis and Luke for beta reading!