Thanks for everything. I had fun writing this, I hope you like this story's take on Toothiana. Jack might be slightly OOC, since he's not infatuated with anyone in his film and I do want to make him develop and grow up a bit. Feel free to complain in the comments! Anyways, hope you enjoy
Chapter 9, featuring an unusual pairing and a bit of snow.
CW: mentions of racism and cultural appropriation, [costume porn, purple prose]
The rainforest's luxuriant canopy was as green as his eyes. The playful morning droplets amongst the leaves clattered as clearly as his laughter. The distant sounds that travelled through the rainforest could almost be muffled echoes of his voice. Even the supple and thick entanglement of tree branches, covered in richly brown bark, was reminiscent of his dense dark hair.
And in every of these incarnations, Hiccup mocked him, scorned him.
Jack closed his eyes. For the hundredth time that morning. Not that it would help. As soon as he reopened them, the inventor was everywhere again. The day that had passed since he last saw him felt like years, and his hope had thawed into moroseness. He shook his head in annoyance, snowy strands jostling about his temples, then jumped into the warm damp air.
The momentary lack of gravity was ever so slightly lulling. But as he flew, bounced, drifted, swung himself, waved at his peers, a grin pasted over his pale lips, his mind was elsewhere. Jack Frost was an automaton whose core had been removed, still in residual motion due to the neat tick-tock of the little clockwork parts. In his centre, he saw only steamy emptiness.
Ducking under the woven vegetal self-growing fence that surrounded the infirmary, he made his way in. The space was large enough to accommodate a dozen of mossy beds. Most of the remedies they used came from the forest around them, from the sticky leaves to tend to wounds to the many herbs that cured digestive troubles. Only a minority had been obtained from the colonists during raids.
"Don't cry," said a gentle voice. "I'll wash it and keep it safe with all the lost teeth. When you think about it, or when you come back here to see it, you'll think about all the most precious memories of your childhood. These memories are everything."
Around the corner, before Jack's eye, the dark-skinned little girl reluctantly parted from her tooth to hand it to the medic. The latter was a small woman, older than Jack by only a couple of years. Her large almond-shaped eyes and her tanned light brown skin betrayed her mixed heritage. She had most probably been born to a Centralesian settler father and a native mother. The Drifters had found her in a basket by a stream, with nothing but some swaddling clothes and a small ibis tattoo on her thigh. She had been named Thoth, after that bird, but her growing abilities as an herbalist, healer and dentist for the community had earned her the fond nickname of Tooth. She was respected and beloved amongst the Guardian, as a sisterly as well as a motherly figure, despite her young age. Jack and Tooth had always been close, having even been a couple for some time, before it became obvious that she reciprocated the feelings her young yellow-haired anaesthesist assistant Sandy had for her. The mixed-race woman and her chief had remained very good friends.
Her long wavy dark hair fell onto her thin shoulders, strands and sections dyed in metallic green, warm orange, electric blue, silvery violet and vibrant indigo. The rims of the knee-length skirt and the short puffed sleeves of her white linen dress were coloured in similar hummingbird-like hues. A low leather corset served as a belt around her slender waist, carrying a number of scalpels, powdered herb pouches or magnifying glasses. Her limbs were covered in emergent veins, pale scars and shiny metal bracelets dangling off her wrists and ankles. The bright quetzal feathers, shells and cogs that hung off the net-like fabric tied under her belt were assorted to those woven into the small braid tucked behind her ear. Her python-fang necklace and matching earrings framed a round face with a broad forehead, dark eyebrows, a small, pierced nose and full lips. Her purple eyes shone with the fierce melancholy of someone wise beyond her years.
"Tooth! How are you enjoying the wings?"
She turned around to see Jack, as her little patient dashed away. He was remarkably able at faking a good mood, but she immediately felt something was off with him. His pale fingers, wrapped around his staff, obliviously fidgeted on the rough wood. His ice blue eyes shone blankly, echoing none of the enthusiasm on his pursed lips.
"The balance is feeling a bit different, but they're great! You guys did a great job on them!"
He noticed her carefully testing the waters, attempting to cheer him up with that overflowing reserve of generosity within her. He wanted it to work, but knew his hopes were paper-thin. Her smile slightly dropped as she measured the amplitude of her leader's unrest.
"Should we… go for a walk?" she suggested lightly.
Sandy would be entirely able to manage the infirmary and the apothecary. The quiet golden-haired Guardian brightly smiled and waved at them, while meticulously extracting the morphium from the pods they had collected into small glass vials to prepare the anaesthetic mixture.
On ordinary days, Tooth wore no wings. She and Jack walked side by side, barefoot and quiet, hardly feeling the irregularities of the dusty soil beneath their blistered feet. Distractedly, she showed him her newest tooth acquisition.
"Have you ever seen a more adorable lateral incisor in all of your life? Look how she flossed!"
"I need to ask you about Hiccup," the silver-haired Drifter simply said.
"You love him."
Her purple eyes widened intelligently. She was always blunt, always motherly, always insightful. When it came from her, he was not surprised or offended. But if that love existed, Jack was hardly able to pinpoint it. When he was around Tooth, he always found it hard to cast a shadow to her overwhelming positivity with his personal problems. He cared about her, and had the impression it only made things more difficult for her.
"This is not about me, this is about the camp. He said something about us Guardians that I never heard before."
"Whatever he said probably affected you in a way you can't measure, if you don't recognise and accept what you feel for him."
"He said I betrayed onto my people, our people who made me a leader. He said I imposed a Centralesian street gang lifestyle onto the Guardians, erasing their – erasing your cultural identity."
"Your aviator is a bourgeois colonist. How can he criticise what you've done when he works with the Companies?"
"Hiccup is different."
"That's what you don't get. You must draw a line between emotion and fact to clearly evaluate the situation. And that starts with understanding you love him."
"He deeply hates me, he scolds me and he scorns me. How can I love him? His word is that I am worse than they will ever be, because you believed in me and I used you by imposing every aspect of my way of life onto you. My irresponsibility, my mockery, my criminality. The thievery, the sabotage, the scavenging, it's all me, isn't it?"
"But the Guardians, the constellite in the tree, the steel and the medication for all of us, the quarry we live in, the safety and the happiness around us, that's also you! Ask anyone here, Jack. You haven't let anyone down. If there is one person here whom you need to prove it to, it is you."
"It's the whole point. I thought about it. These people don't notice because I transformed them. Because I altered in the deepest centre of themselves who they are and the goodness that they have. Because I froze their heart with the point of my staff. Look at you, you're kind, you're brave, you're strong, and under my command you raided, stole and fled."
"Well, without you I'd be lost somewhere in the rainforest, hiding in fear from the settler patrols, hunting for my food without a roof to sleep under by night."
"You'd be free, and you'd be yourself."
"But I am myself, Jack. And that is why I and the rest of us believe in you. Because you love each and every of your people, as they are."
"No. I love them as I made them, as bad copies of myself due to my poor style, and that is the only reason they admire and imitate me."
As a medic, she felt the pain and suffering of those she tended to, in imagination, sometimes more than they did themselves. Years of practice had dulled the empathic sensations, but Tooth was still aware of what was going through Jack's mind. There was no way of going back, she realised. The carefree loner was gone, and the self-conscious chief unknowingly bound to another soul had replaced him. Like a child let go of a lost tooth, they had to accept that what was life had detached into memory. Their leader had changed, and in consequence the tribe had to change. If there was one thing she could do, it was making him accept and perform this change before it turned back onto him and devoured him from the inside.
"So you have to change things, Jack. If you can't be happy as they are, what do you propose?"
"I need your counsel."
"I cannot aid you, because I don't see what, in this camp, is wrong today that was still right yesterday. The colonists are still searching for us, and still failing at that. The raids at Plant Alpha and Bartolomé are reasonably successful, just as they were. There are sacrifices, but no progress can be made without some. The soil and the life here are dying, but this place is still the best we have. The native Huacan tribe is turbulent, but mostly stays out of the way, and the smaller and further Drifter camps hardly interact with us. Nothing has changed for us since Hiccup came. Nothing but your self-confidence."
His self-confidence. He was an egoistic, whining little idiot. He had thought he had loved his people, but the only one he could possibly love was himself. Jack Frost's heart was a block of ice so well-polished it had the reflections of a mirror, he thought bitterly.
"Jack, if you must do something, do it to prove to yourself that you are worthy of leading us. You taught us to believe in you, but you need to believe in yourself!"
Jack's blue eyes turned to hers, and he understood what he read over her fine traits. She trusted him. Entirely, not blindly but voluntarily. She believed in him. She could see him clearly, more clearly than he would ever see himself. He had to do something, he realised. He had to step out of his comfort zone, to do something for his people that he had never done before. He had to leave the lazily mischievous comfort of the haven to do something crazy – something to prove what he, Jack Frost, was truly made of.
Drifting in between two clouds, the sun cast its green dappled light through the translucent-turned canopy. The blurred silhouettes of the branches were sketched onto the emerald leaves of all sizes and shapes, in a surreal game of lights and wavering shadows. Jack gazed upwards for a moment. It took him a second to realise why. He wished the shadow of Toothless would project itself onto the canopy, that the brunette inventor would come back. He wished to caress with his eyes the unkempt curls of his auburn hair as they tumbled out of his flying helmet, the freckles that punctuated his solemn face with youthful vitality, the curious flutter of his curved eyelashes, the sudden smiles that parted his svelte lips and cast light around them…
Maybe Tooth was right, once again. Maybe that was what love was. What he felt for Hiccup, for he had to admit the young aviator did not leave him indifferent, had nothing to do with what he had ever been through with Tooth. Love simply wasn't at all, perhaps. Or perhaps love had many faces, all different, all fleeting, all beautifully symmetric, all powerfully unique, like just as many drifting snowflakes.
Six years earlier
For once, Albion the White was true to its name. Every street, every roof, every palace and every hovel was covered in a thick layer of snow. The new winter had been the harshest for a decade. The Man in the Sky was punishing the proud Cornucopian metropolis for its doings, harangued some scrawny gazetteer around the road's corner. The dark trafficking in Elephantine had lasted for too long, the rumours spread, the troops marching over Centralesia would pay for their inhumanities, and so would the nobles at court for their eccentric cravings. Some council, which had dared to point at two little clouds in the sky as the last pieces of undergarment the Man in the Sky, should fear retribution too. The winter was going to be long, and even those who were uncovering the remaining cloudy underclothing could hardly predict that.
Jackson Overland, however, hardly cared about the dealings of the Company of Northern Elephantine. The people below needed their scapegoats, but he lived overland, after all, above all of their heads in a world where roofs were paths, streets were ravines and placid cloud-puffing chimneys were kings. As he ran, he saw the metallic carcass, intricately woven in nuts and bolts, of the ironhorse station under its glass skin. Underneath, a motley sepia crowd gathered around the rails, under the majestic railway clock, wondering when the snow would be cleared off for the ironhorse to arrive. Around the quays lay a market that spread over the limits of the glass building onto the plaza, the streets and the city. Albion the White was a continuum of markets around stations, the limit was blurred as to when one ended and where another started. And on that day, all was reduced to a continuum of white.
Jackson thought of sneaking into the station and into the crowd to jump into the first ironhorse that would take him far away. Far away from the orphanage, from the canes and the whips after food fights, from the cackle of boys in the chill dormitories, from the Colonel who wanted to put him into some family up north. From that patron who wanted to make him into his own Mr. Jack Frost, his own mysterious silver-haired gentleman with the name of a god and the manners of a dandy of Cornucopia.
But that was not Jackson. He was a street rat, a roof king, a child who would live free even if he had to wear sepia rags and steal oranges from markets, to sleep under a blanket of cold wind and wake up to the strident sirens at the docks. He was a loner, inexistent to all those who lived underneath, who would never believe in children living amongst clouds were in any way related to the mysterious disappearance of sugar cubes, bread rolls or woolen gloves. He was as invisible and as free as the wind.
In a few jumps, he was atop the Company of Western Extremesia's roof, crowned in bronze sabretooth tigers and flightless wyverns. Playfully, he jumped onto the helix just above a chimney and spun around with it. With a light chuckle, he ran down the edge of the roof, leaving small footprints on the pristine snow. Such an amusing thing, he thought, to always be the first one to tread upon the rooftop snow.
But his mind was once again distracted. Right below, the water in the docks had frozen overnight! That was going to be fun! Immediately, he jumped off the rooftop. Jackson knew no fear; flying was as simple as breathing. But immensely more exhilarating. His bare feet slid off the surface of the ice's surface. Picking up a crooked stick that must have been floating around before the night, he dragged it around the ice along his elliptical path, liberating a flock of tiny crystals in his wake.
"You. What d'you think you're doing here? This dock belongs to us!"
Jackson looked up to see a posse of scrawny boys, barely better-clad than himself, staring down from the dock with aggressive pride. They could see him, these children, he suddenly remembered. He was not invisible.
"I'll teach you a lesson, and you'll see!"
The largest boy, whose unkempt red locks were plastered against his freckled temples jumped onto the ice, right in front of him. Jackson could hardly stifle a laugh as he slid and heavily fall onto his derriere. The whole gang's faces were hilarious. Tears came to his eyes, immediately freezing in the cold air.
And then he heard the gasp. The cracks rapidly propagated from where the redhead had fallen.
"Cal!" yelled one of the boys on the dock.
By reflex, Jackson used the crooked end of his stick to hook it onto the other boy's jacket and swing him onto the safety of the soggy jetty. Jackson half-ran, half-glided towards the dock, the ice fracturing with a sickening crunch beneath him. He was dead. For that idiot boy's life, Jackson Overland was so very dead.
Small hands grabbed onto his arms, pulling him onto the hard stone ground. Relief poured through him as soon as his blistered feet felt the stone floor covered in muddy melted snow. The street children stared at him, bewildered.
"You… who are you?" squeaked an indignant Cal.
The silver-haired boy bowed sniggering, taking advantage to swing his stick into Will's legs. The large ginger head once again fell into the cold mud, for the greatest delight of the mirthful onlooking kids. A mischievous smirk stretched on the corner of the pale child's lips.
"Jack Frost. Spirit of Winter and Rider of Winds."
For some stupid reason, they trusted him. They believed in him. They saw him. Jackson Overland had died in the icy water. They saw him as Jack Frost.
"Oh and by the way… snow day!" he bellowed, tossing a fresh snowball into the closest boy's face.
By the infirmary at the Guardians' camp
"Jack?" asked Tooth nervously, interrupting his thoughts.
"Huh? Sorry, I was lost in my memories."
Memories. The most important thing each of the Guardians could possibly own. The one thing that Tooth lived to guard and protect, above all.
"Anything good?"
"I need to befriend the native gangs of our area. I will propose a truce with the Huacans. Natives or not, they're Drifters, just like us. These past years we've been disconnected from the reality of native life and tradition. We've drifted overland rather than live on the land. I have to rebuild this tie with the land, and the first step is acknowledging the Huacans."
"The Huacans… that would save many a pointless loss in small confrontations and mutual scavenging. If a truce works out, that is. But Drago is a powerful man. If he rallies the lesser tribes, we won't be able to face them in guerilla."
"Then we'll need to negotiate. We'll get there with words, not weapons. If I'm the Guardians' Feathered Snake, I'll be theirs as well. They'll believe in me, trust me…"
She saw the gray clouds in the azure of his gleaming eyes.
"But?"
"But I don't want to adopt them, this time. I want them to adopt me."
He stared straight into her deep violet eyes, full to the brim with both hope and despair. Her agile fingers traced the line of his veins on his forearm, before settling over his shoulder like a landing Quetzal. Her eyebrows, the right one slashed by a small scar, rose in contemplation.
It was a brave choice, no doubt. The Huacans had been the Drifters' main rivals since they had settled in the quarry. But she also knew that their people were just the same, that the arbitrary tribe repartition had split brothers and sisters, parents and children, lovers and friends. The other Drifters would listen to Jack, just as the Guardians had, because everyone listened to Jack. Ever since the swarming street gangs of Cornucopia had believed in him. The Huacans would not kill their own kin. Their traditions encouraged them to take prisoners alive rather than dead, and Drago's position was precarious enough within his own tribe for him to upset his supporters, no matter how reckless he could be.
But that mattered not, for there needed to be a change, and there needed to be a choice. And Tooth would firmly stand with Jack for him to believe in his choice.
She thought of how he had yet to realise he loved Hiccup, like she had once ignored what she felt for Sandy. Of how he wanted to prove himself to the aviator, by showing himself capable of the very thing he had been mocked about. Of how he hardly cared that the brunette youth would never see it, for Jack would see Hiccup everywhere until he understood his own feelings. Of how the one he would end up proving himself to was none other than himself.
But it mattered not either.
For the snow-haired Feathered Snake was all grown up, the limit between emotion and reason had blurred into the memory of a dream, the Guardians' fate was about to change and with it, the Drifter tribes', the organised raids'… The Companies and the powerful machine of steel and flesh that powered the Colonies were about to jam, sending sparks of constellite and flame in its wake.
"I'll travel to the Huacans tomorrow in the balloon. North can come with me. Tooth, I want you and Sandy to stay and guard the camp, no matter what. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I do. I've always believed in you."
And I in you, his eyes wanted to say, but there was too much rumbling within him for Jack to let it out. Her leader cared for her and Sandy. No matter how flawed, how crooked they and their love could be. She stared at him as he slowly hooked onto a branch to jump into the air and retract into loneliness. Deep inside her, she was conscious that this vision was all that would be left of the instant, while it had evaporated into memory.
She was hardly aware, however, that a certain civilian aviator had accidentally uncovered their location to some steel-making business, and that he had yet to warn them about it.
Fun fact: the Huacans are called so because they live on the Teotihuacan pyramid site. It is much more ancient as they are, they have not built it. Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Snake, resembled a pale, white-haired individual who loved his people as they were and rejected human sacrifice (there are many versions of these legends, so you might have read otherwise). In another tale, he was also known for offering up his own heart to resume the sun's trajectory in the sky. There have been theories (which I personally like, even though I don't know that much haha) likening Quetzalcoatl to Leif Ericsson and the first Viking sailors who reached the Americas in medieval times, so our dearest Jokul Frosti can fill the role… Yeah, Aztec mythology is pretty cool. What do you think about SandyxTooth? I haven't seen it anywhere before, but it looks like her talkative excitement and kind patience would complement his dreamy calm and strong willpower quite well. Should there be more of this later? What should be their ship name? Tell me in the reviews!
Announcement: I just posted a one-shot related to an ongoing original writing project of mine, if you like fairytales and vampires go check it out and leave a review! Please R&R, F&F, please please leave a comment, that's really helpful. Thanks for your awesomeness.