Thanks everyone for everything. Basically, everyone was waiting for this, so here it is. This chapter ended up so long I had to split it in two, and I'm nowhere near finishing the second part (where you get to know what happened to Hiccup's glider). Human!Jack (~18 y. o.)

faisyah865: Simple answer – here you go. Glad you're enjoying it.

Chapter 5, where a flashback occurs, a propensity of lists wildly appear and FrostCup cuteness is rather strong.

CW: anxiety, very mildly sexual content, [mention of spiders, environmental content]

The constellite lights of the Exposition zeppelin ever so slightly dimmed the brilliance of the starry night sky. The sea was eerily flat and black. The moonlight illuminated the deck of the Berk Entreprise Rumblehorn 12. While its colossal hull was gently rocked by the evening tide, the high chimneys breathed a shimmer of smoke amongst the galaxy. Save for the floating red flag atop the mast that beat like a little heart in the gentle breeze, everything was silent.

Hiccup stood leaning by the dragon-shaped figurehead, still in his ball attire. His black top hat, ornate with a blue jay feather and silver cogs of assorted sizes, was in his hand, symbol of his status and class. Identical little gears served as buttons for his cream-coloured waistcoat that matched the tone of the stiff bow tie. A blue-green handkerchief emerged from his small pocket, emphasizing the colour of his eyes. The straight dark trousers mostly hid his prosthesis. The slightly large jet black tailcoat almost resembled the folded wings of a bat from behind. He was staring into the distance towards the East, the endless ocean, the horizon and the Earth's curve and, even further, the Old land of Centralesia.

Astrid, by contrast, had already changed into her bedtime outfit. Her long, beige nightgown was oscillating in the chill wind, draping against the muscular curve of her leg. Pale blonde strands rebelliously escaped from her braided hair bun.

"So, how was it? "

"The ball? 'Twas like a… ball? Not much to say."

He did not turn to look at her. His voice was remotely calm, but Astrid better than anyone could sense the muffled storm under the velvety curtain. She was his oldest and closest childhood friend, as well as his partner-at-arms, as Stoick and the rest of the Berk Clan insisted he should have one. Following her mother's passing in an early glider test accident, as was the upper-class custom, Stoick had adopted her as his own daughter. While her mother's fate left her with anxiety nervousness towards flight, she had been trained in the usage of all arms, and outmatched the rather lean Hiccup as well as most of her peers in all aspects of her art. Her fame had reached further outside Berk Steel when Stoick and Gobber judiciously used her combat luxographs to advertise for their range of weapons. Even though their expertise fields differed, they knew each other well enough to detect the slightest hint of unrest in their partner's silence.

"Not the ball, the robot orang-utan playing cymbals on the clock."

"It was a baboon." She was well aware of his fine visual memory.

"Yippee, you're listening. The flight, Hiccup."

"I… This is hard to believe, but the girl at the show... she shot at me."

"How far south did you even go? It's a wild area, you could have…"

"What, gotten shot? At the very worst?"

He gave a small sarcastic smile.

"Point taken. Where were you?"

"Northwest of Plant Epsilon. There was a militia patrol. They're great shots, but newbies. They must have confused me for a- a Drifter."

"Did you see her? Did you recognise her?"

"Her bow and her arrows."

Astrid felt it was only a half truth. As was evident from the performance, both bow and arrows were unique models. Hiccup's knowledge of mechanics and metallurgy, especially on his own plane, could lead him to that deduction from anything: size and shape of impact, fragment form, crack propagation pattern…

"Where did she get you?"

"Left turbine. Some other archer broke the glass roof."

… But not if the projectile had shattered a plane motor at flight speed and exploded it.

"How did you fix that? How did you get back?"

"Typical procedure. Stopped both engines, deployed helium balloons. I escaped them and managed to get to Bartolomé, where I got a spare from a glider cemetery. Then I… you know… patched it up. There was no way I could get back in time if I stopped in town to get the roof repaired, so I just flew back without."

And that certainly did not explain the bandages under his tight left sleeve. Many other things were wrong. An elite archer like that girl would not be sent patrolling to such a remote location of scarce interest like the Northwest of Plant Epsilon. Hiccup would have telegraphed from Bartolomé had he stopped there, to save precious radiocommunicator power, even if he pretended to have no time to go to town. His new rotor would have been old and dirty, if not rusty and deformed. But it looked brand new, if mismatched with the untouched one. And last but not least, he would have messaged the truth to Stoick and her.

Her best friend was lying to her. Accusing a warrior she admired without properly knowing. But mainly, he was lying. A dark prospect. Very dark prospect.

"I'm sorry, I – I know you know you liked the redhead."

Liked the redhead? Was Hiccup going falsely emotional to distract her from the truth? He knew she would not be distracted, of course he measured how well she read him. He was simply hinting at her. Hinting that she should give up, change the conversation topic or leave. In a last attempt, she gave him a strong shove, tossing him onto the wooden deck.

He did not punch back or even protest, the way he would usually. Then his large green eyes met hers. And she felt it. There was something different, something mysterious. Something broken, like a half-healed scar, like a memory that still needed recall and absorption. Like an emotion that was not understood or tamed. A force powerful and strange that altered the Hiccup she knew. There was nothing she could help with, if he refused to open up to her. Noisily swallowing her saliva, she walked away towards her cabin.

Quickly scrambling back to his feet, he abruptly turned to her. From within his numbness, he wanted to apologise for shutting her out, and even for apologising if she insisted, and even for… But he knew she was right, for she knew him better than he knew himself. He needed time alone; to fix up alone like a damaged turbine, even simply to bring himself to be able to talk about it. Under the crust of numbness he had patched up like some makeshift armour, was an uncontrolled magma of raw memory, that he dared not touch for fear of… something. He, the intrepid aviator who flew alone over the Extremesian jungles and outmatched the militia of Plant Alpha, was afraid. And worse, his dread rendered him ridiculous. Maybe a stupid imagination game would help, he snorted to himself. He built up a silly mental sketch image of his memory as a dense forest, and himself as a glider diving straight into it.

Twelve hours earlier

When Hiccup regained consciousness, the first thing he registered was the thin fabric sheet over his body. A bed. Clearly someone had brought him there. He sat up amongst the bedsheets. A stinging pain in his left arm made him wince. He saw his shirt sleeve had been cleanly torn off, and a fresh bandage covered his wounds from the explosion. His leather jacket was unbuttoned, probably to ease his breathing while he was unconscious, but all his tools and gadgets were still in his pockets and his prosthetic leg was still on. On the low bedside table lay his flying helmet, beside a wooden cup filled with what looked like water. If someone wanted to kill him, they would not have rescued him in the first place to poison him now. He picked up the contained and poured the liquid into his parched throat. The water was pleasantly fresh.

Hiccup got up without difficulty. The room was warm, slightly damp, small but not too low of ceiling. While three of the walls were tropical wood panels, the fourth one was… simply missing. Curious, he looked outside.

Sunlight poured gold through the green rainforest leaves. He was in a cabin, in the superior branches of a tree, just below the canopy. Below and around, similar objects were perched onto the branches like a flock of dark birds. Their construction was durable, if sometimes rough and out of mismatched woods. The treehouses were connected by diverse means: wooden planks, makeshift rope bridges, rusted metallic ladders, pulley systems or even some liana. Equally eclectic things were hung from them, from the usual drying clothes and shoes to the old loudspeakers, fruit and vegetable baskets, assorted weapons, metalwork tools, heterogeneous automaton fragments, a deflated hot air balloon, a broken glider wing, musical instruments, mirrors of different shapes and sizes, mismatched cookery items, old books with pages open on either side of the rope, badminton rackets…

But everywhere they were. Drifters. The old, the young, the female, the male, clad in solid fabrics in forest green, earthy ochre and gold, brown or scarlet, deep indigo or fruity violet, sky blue or saturated turquoise. Some had their hair dyed in myriads of colours, some displayed intricate vegetal tattoos, others carried pieces of engines like automatic harpoons on forearms or magnetic boomerangs, others decorated their outfits with rainbow-coloured feathers, emerald-tainted moss, iridescent shells and textured furs.

All were on the flight, on the jump spreading their fabric wings, walking along branches and swinging along ropes with their crooked sticks, always on the move not to lose balance, in a motion perfectly fluid and confident. They truly occupied the space in its three dimensions, the forest in its complete glory. But even more, they weren't on a strike or a raid, they lived, carried back fish from some river, nursing infants, teaching rudiments of combat and metalwork, washing clothes in wooden buckets, built new sheds, blew glass, repaired balloons, sang and laughed. The place was more than a nomadic settlement or a lost refuge; it was a haven of life, light and energy. A beautiful and mesmerising city of a kind Hiccup had never seen before, that had just opened its doors him in the last few minutes. A world whose very existence one could only believe in once one saw it and lived it…

"Hey, you're up."

Hiccup jumped. The playful voice was from behind, and above him.

"It's just me, don't faint."

Hiccup turned around to see Jack Frost, hanging off the ceiling from a branch that grew between two planks of wood. His signature staff was in his hand. His dark blue cloak was off him, such that Hiccup could clearly see his face. He looked young, maybe even younger than Hiccup himself. His hair was the palest shade of blonde, drawing onto silver, as thin and light as flower petals. His juvenile face was well-proportioned. His chin was square and decisive, as if chiselled in white marble. The thin lips were parted into a mischievous grin that Hiccup would qualify of… Nay, he would not qualify it, that was hardly polite for a gentleman of his rank. He had a straight, well-shaped nose most men – and women – would easily envy him. Strong, snowy eyebrows that emphasised crystalline blue eyes, looking at him with bemused curiosity.

"Eh, hard not to faint. You kinda… turn me… upside down."

The silver-haired teenager's smile widened. In a supple gesture, he dropped from his branch, as light as a sparrow, to perfectly land on his feet facing Hiccup. The aviator took a step back to avoid being hit by the staff and stumbled slightly on the uneven floor. In a heartbeat, the Drifter had secured him by catching his shoulder. His thin, long fingers traced the line of Hiccup's spine, arousing goose bumps on their chill wake, then across his neck, his thumb pausing for an instant on the inventor's cheek. After the goose bumps, strangely, came warm tingles upon his skin.

"You're not bad yourself," the Drifter teased.

"Th-thanks, er, sir," mumbled Hiccup.

His gentlemanly education had hardly prepared him for such situations.

"Sir? Really?"

"Sorry, thanks Jack."

To his surprise, his interlocutor's eyes lit up with mirth. Not much was needed to amuse him, apparently.

"Great, you remember what I'm called."

The lean fingers traced the pale freckles on his face and played with the dark locks of his hair. Hiccup could feel himself blushing slightly in embarrassment. Where were his manners? How was he supposed to react? Was the teenager going to check his teeth like a stallion's?

"I don't think I've caught your name," the silver-haired boy said casually, with a lingering hint of amusement.

When he wasn't joking, his voice was so… different from most people Hiccup knew. Consequence of living in the wilderness amongst the Drifters, he guessed. It was at the same time rough and soft, forceful and gentle. The aviator's heart was pounding faster, he hardly registered why.

"But you've caught me… twice… Isn't that good enough?"

Jack broke into a frank chuckle. His laugh was clear, pure like an everlasting glacier's ice under the bright blue sky. Strangely, Hiccup found that soothing.

"The name's Hiccup."

"Hiccup?!"

Great, now the Drifter was hardly able to contain his laugh. At his name, as usual. He had to pat his shoulder to calm him down.

"People in my family have strange names so the evil spirits don't take them at birth, in my family," he explained patiently.

He mentally gave up on mentioning his last name was Horrendous Haddock. The man's shoulder was surprisingly muscular, for someone this skinny. Dangling off ladders and chains at the end of a stick had something to do with this, most certainly. Under the thin tissue of Jack's shirt, he could feel the firm shape of his muscles and the rounded shoulder bone that rose like a the talon of dragon's wing…

"Right, should I… show you around?"

"Yes, yes of course!"

By Odin's eye, what was he thinking? For the first time in his life, he was in a Drifter's camp, probably being one of the only men of his class to see it… and he stood there, marvelling at someone's shoulder?

"You have some steady coalstring wings there, I can see. Wish we had enough equipment at disposition to make those. But then, from the rest of what you're wearing, you don't seem too poor, do you?"

Hiccup knew the hatred shared between Drifters and his family. He had to be careful about the topic.

"My father dabbles in steelworks. I'm an aviator and inventor. We share a number of patents," he shrugged.

Jack let out an impressed whistle.

"You have some scratches on your arm. Courtesy of crazy mercenary. I guess you should be okay with some flying. If you feel painful, just tell me, right?"

Hiccup nodded.

"Ready?" asked the silver-haired teen, smiling naughtily.

"Er… AAAAAH!"

Before he had time to realise what was going on, the other man had pushed him into the vacuum. Instinctively, he deployed his wings and his dorsal fin.

With his saviour's presence by his side, he knew he was in no danger. And that was exhilarating. The wind beat through his wings and his thick dark hair. Adrenaline was rushing through his body. Around him, the motley groups of Drifters were flying just like him. He was amongst them. He saw them, they saw him. He was living what they lived every other minute. For a split second, he was one of them.

Then Jack forcefully grabbed him and swung him, with a gesture of his staff, towards a large tree. Both of them landed on a small dedicated platform, before a quite large hole in the tree's white knotty structure.

"Look inside."

The tree was hollow. In his many flights, he had stopped upon trees to witness anything alike. The Drifters had interposed bags of glimmering constellite. Roots and creepers slithered around them like brown snakes.

"It's a strangler fig tree," Jack explained. "Grows around another tree, as a parasite, until the tree dies and crumbles away, and that's what's left. The constellite interacts in a funny way with plants. Not only this tree, but all plants. They both have weird ways to interact with light. The roots 'like' those minerals; they bind really well with them and absorb the constellite's energy. When the plants harvest light, it stabilises the constellite and regenerates it. It suffers much slower damage when the energy stored used in darkness or exposed to water that way. I've heard it's the same kind of thing for all stones, but the drain-and-regeneration process is around a tenth of a second at most, we've observed that."

"Whoa." Constellite was known for its photosynthetic-like properties, and had been compared to leaves in its efficiency to harvest sunlight's energy. But even a well-versed inventor like Hiccup had no idea their properties interacted so organically. Wood and steel were distinct industries, and the likes of his father who exploited lumber were too busy cutting down large, healthy trees to provide excruciatingly expensive furniture for the aristocrats and bourgeoisie of Centralesia to pay any attention to a parasite that ended up as a hollow tree.

"Wait… how did you figure that out?"

"By chance," the Drifter grinned. "It was a quite intuitive thing to store our valuable stuff in here. Very hard to access for wild animals and pretty much anything else, but very easy for us. Then we found out."

Jack demonstrated, effectuating a perfect somersault through one of the holes to elastically land onto the brown sacks. The dim indigo light that illuminated him from below gave a surreal gleam to his icy blue eyes and highlighted the fine traits of his sculptural face. Hiccup was alarmed as a hint of sadness arched his silver brows. He fumbled between the bags until he could pull out a bit of liana. Dragging with both arms, he extracted the full creeper, with some help from the aviator. The plant was dried, lifeless and leafless, turned crimson brown, between their fingers. The two winged men's faces were at inches from each other, on either side of a hole in the strangler tree. The white-haired Drifter's voice was tainted with melancholy as he spoke:

"On the long term everything's dying here. The settlers from the Old Continent used to search here for gold and constellite. Corona & Sons and their partners were more radical and soaked this land with mercury to cluster the gold. The mercury is toxic, contaminating water, plants, fungi and animals. They soon realised that this earth had no gold to give, but that it had stone. So this became a stone quarry. When they exploited everything, they left, and that's about when we came. The ground in the quarry is lower than elsewhere, which allows us to live completely hidden from the colonists outside and protect us from the more dangerous wildlife specimens. But it also means the exploited ground is unstable and eroded by the rain. Hardly good conditions for anything to live."

"I'm sorry."

Jack thoughtfully threw the dead liana away.

"The Guardians must protect and preserve the land and remove what is perishing for what is young and healthy to grow," he stated quite solemnly.

The Guardians? Hiccup looked around slightly concerned, expecting tall figures in black cloaks to surround them, holding keys and old scrolls.

Suddenly Jack burst into laughter.

"Look at yourself! That was a priceless face!"

Hiccup jumped, surprised by his guide's sudden good mood.

"The Guardians? Where are they?"

"Here. Around you."

"Wait. Are they trees? Creepers? Insects? Arachnids?"

That would have been repugnant.

"No, the people!"

Oh dear, so they were standing behind him in their dark hoods?

"What? All of them? You included?"

"Aye."

Hiccup suddenly understood, and joined the teenager in an amused chuckle at the bizarre misunderstanding. It was not long until he had to pause to catch his breath and wipe his tears. It was not often a gentleman could laugh without restraint. As he listened, he decided Jack's laughter wasn't a glacier, but a snowflake, both symmetric and delicate, fast and free, riding the winter winds unaware of gravity. Certainly the most beautiful laughter that had ever filled his ears.

Fun fact: Strangler fig trees are an actual thing. For real. Additionally, before you ask, this fic will most likely not have any MeridaxAstrid shipping. I dislike putting people into pairs and taking the remaining single people and pairing them up too for the sake of it. Like or hate, tell me in the comments. From here on, as quite heavily hinted in the previous chapter, morality is getting grayer and grayer (also why Hiccup is being so disturbed at the start of this). Hiccup, Jack, Merida or Rapunzel may do something you find morally wrong, or may consider something you find quite standard as outrageous. They can also change their minds on whether something is good. No all-black villains either. I don't do Good vs Evil. Be warned.

Announcement: As you may have noticed before, I write content warnings for all chapters when applicable. Rating change will be indicated if necessary. I am taking the warnings quite seriously, because there's things you don't want to joke about like depression or racism etc. In between square brackets are the things you might not want to see in a chapter, like 'oh my god they're talking about polystyrene I hate polystyrene' so if you don't like/despise that you've been warned. Evidently some of these may be ironic/sarcastic. Right, hope you enjoyed this chapter, R&R, F&F, comment constructively, so many thanks xxx