It's the Great Spirit Sleigh, Hiccup Haddock

by Saph

Chapter 2: Hiccup, the Other Reindeer

Hiccup woke when only the palest traces of light were on the horizon. His father was already up and out of the house for the day, which was a good thing because he'd forgotten to ground him the night before. That meant Hiccup managed to grab a quick breakfast and run out the door to the woods without anyone stopping him.

Cramming his woolly hat on his head and running out the door with a hunk of bread held between his teeth, Hiccup made for the tree line, running into the woods in the direction of Mildew's abandoned cabin. Snow had fallen in the middle of the night, covering up his footprints from the night before and the usual trails through the woods were obscured so he had to pick his way through the forest carefully, using his memory of the landmarks he always went past while traipsing through the woods alone.

He'd finished the last of the bread about when he saw the cabin and stomped through the snow to the door.

Shoving the door open, he said, "Hey guys, I -"

He stopped talking when he saw the empty cabin. The fire had burned down and all that was left was some char and ash. Hiccup reached a hand down tentatively to feel it and it wasn't even warm anymore.

There was a moment that he stood in the doorway, looking and feeling lost.

Had the night before all just been in his head? Had it all been some bizarre dream? It seemed too fantastic, too weird to be something his brain could kick out on its own.

If it was just a dream, it was pretty much absolutely devastating, because it meant that there was no chance to fix things. It meant there was no hope.

Right then, Hiccup heard a familiar voice through the trees. "Whoa, get that thing under control, Roger Rabbit!"

"Yeah, in case you haven't noticed, mate, it doesn't want to be controlled."

"You're nervous so it's making it nervous."

Hiccup wheeled around and started running in the direction of the voices. They were coming from the meadow that he'd seen them crash in, the one he'd run away from when he'd been spooked by Jack's ice magic. To Hiccup's great relief, he found the Guardians all gathered around the broken-down sleigh, only this time there were eight huge reindeer they were trying to corral into the meadow.

"Easy, Blitzen, easy," said Jack, easing the reindeer into the little impromptu pen they'd put together. "This one is Blitzen, right?"

"Comet," said North with just the briefest of glances. He was busy evaluating the sleigh.

"Those are some pretty big reindeer," said Hiccup. "Good eatin'?"

Jack turned and smiled at him when he heard his voice.

"Not for eating!" said North protectively.

"Hey, Hiccup," said Jack. "The reindeer got unhooked and got away when we crashed here. Took them a while but they finally came back."

"Ippolitov-Ivanov!" exclaimed North. "This is not looking good on the sleigh. Manny's moon magic can only do so much. Mechanical damage must fixed by hand and we are not having the right equipment."

"Lemme take a look," said Hiccup, moving in closer, standing on tiptoe to look in the gap between the sleigh's wings and its chassis. After a moment, he heaved himself up on the wing with scrawny arms and half-crawled into the gap to poke and prod.

"Ayep, I can see it. That little doodad that's holding up the retractable part, right? Looks like that weight-bearing rivet is bent out of shape. You're prob'ly gonna have to take those two rods out and replace them. Even if they can be bent back into shape, there are little fissures in the metal. Over time, that's gonna give."

"How can we do this without machine shop?"

"I could fix it," Hiccup said earnestly. "I apprentice in a forge and I build mini siege weapons all the time. I might need a little guidance but I can forge you the new parts you need, at the very least."

Sandy raised his eyebrows at the bit with the siege weapons, as if to say 'Interesting hobby choice there.'

"You would do this for us?" North asked gently.

"Of course. You guys are helping me and even if you weren't, I wouldn't wish being stuck on Berk on anyone that wasn't born here. It's home for us, but between the absolutely charming residents, the fire-breathing reptiles, and a climate that can freeze the snot in your nose, it's not really ideal for anyone else."

Jack clapped Hiccup companionably on the back.

"That's perfect. We can all work together on the sleigh and the whole Snoggletog thing."

"Speaking of Snoggletog," said North, "we should be getting to work. I have many ideas! Jack can make ice sculptures all through town. Altar to Odin with carved wooden figures as offering, with holly and wreaths of pine. Replacement tree with lights in the branches!"

"Candles probably wouldn't be the best idea. Flammability was kind of the issue with the last tree," Hiccup pointed out.

"Who says candles? No need for candles when there is magic. That is what we will help you bring to your village, my young friend," said North, smiling at the Viking boy. "Things they have never seen before!"

It was a lot to get done in a very short amount of time, but with the six of them working on it, the work seemed to fly by. When they weren't all working together on repairing the sleigh with the parts Hiccup forged and snuck into the woods, they were building things for Snoggletog, with the intention of moving them into place all at once when night fell on Snoggletog Eve.

It wasn't easy when their resources were limited, but there were plenty of things that could be made from nature itself into something new and wonderful. Bunny, it turned out, was a tremendous help there, as his knowledge of plants and the natural world gave them an edge on finding things to turn into dyes and paints. Tooth was, as usual, stellar at organizing things and guiding their efforts to the utmost efficiency. Sandy, for his part, was the king of creativity, coming up with shapes and designs for them to carve into the wood of the tree they were building.

Jack's primary contribution to the proceedings seemed to be occasionally spiriting Hiccup off in the middle of working to play. Sometimes he lured him away with a snowball to the head, sometimes he coaxed him into an impromptu game of hide and seek with a 'Betcha you won't be able to find me!' Sometimes he simply convinced Hiccup to stomp around with him to check out the island. If the others were bothered by Jack's incapacity to work towards a deadline, they never said a word. In fact, it was more likely that they were never bothered at all, because every time the two boys came back to work, Hiccup was smiling broadly and he was out of breath from all the laughter.

In fact, as they all spent time with Hiccup, he opened up more and more and they found that there was someone very kind under the self-effacing sarcasm, and to say he was bright was a bit of an understatement.

"If you change this part to a ball bearing here, you'll be able to prevent a lot of wear and tear. There's too much strain on the joint as it is and that'd give it a bit more flexibility. Oh, and you might want to change the shape of the steering arm in the suspension so it's less likely to warp."

North looked at where Hiccup was dangling in the open chassis of the sleigh, then he looked towards the others.

"Are you sure we can't take him home?"

"Much as we want to, no," said Jack. "We'd have to feed him, give him water, take him for walks – it's just too much responsibility."

"But he is so much better at this than yetis!"

The argument wasn't a serious one. They knew they couldn't realistically bring him home with them, but the smile that brightened Hiccup's face every time they had it – a smile at the thought of being wanted somewhere, even if he couldn't go – made it an argument that was worth rehashing over and over.

Hiccup, for his part, worked tirelessly to fix up the sleigh and on the Snoggletog decorations.

"It doesn't have to be perfect," Tooth pointed out when she noticed him, at one point, painting and repainting some of the carved figures that were meant to be offerings in the altar.

"I kind of just want it to be," said Hiccup, looking at the carving reflectively.

He knew, in his heart of hearts that Astrid had been right about his efforts in dragon-hunting being selfish. Every time he failed, he messed something up and while his response was often a glib remark or a dry joke, it bothered him when the others were caught in the crossfire. It didn't bother him enough to make him stop because the desperation to fit in was even stronger, but it definitely bothered him. What kept him going, ultimately, was the hope that instead of messing things up for everyone, he'd do something right, that helped them.

At the very least, he regretted that he'd ruined things for Snoggletog when it could have waited until after the holiday. He knew he really ought to keep his screwups on a less inconvenient schedule.

"This is my way of saying I'm sorry. When you do that, shouldn't you make it clear that you mean it?" Hiccup went on, looking sidelong at Tooth.

In response to that, she just wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

It was that, Hiccup's well-meaning nature, that attracted Jack to him like a moth to an industrial strength bug-zapper. Hiccup was utterly harmless, but not in a way that implied weakness. Rather, he was harmless in that he didn't mean anyone harm. He was harmless in that he had a sense of compassion that had apparently endured quite a bit of thoughtless ostracization with quiet resilience.

Jack found this out because Hiccup chattered away at him incessantly, about just about everything. Now that he'd found someone to talk to it seemed that the Viking couldn't stop, thoughts and opinions and ideas and keen philosophical observations bubbling out of him like a pot that was boiling over. Jack never minded it for a moment; after spending three hundred years with hardly anyone talking to him, or even noticing him, it felt good to listen to someone chatter away.

It was a quiet night, before Hiccup went home for the day, that he and Jack lay together on a frost-covered rock under the stars.

During all his years of being invisible and alone, desperate for contact, Jack had never imagined that connecting with another human being could be this easy.

He remembered a time once, long ago, that people had friendships of a different nature than they were in the modern day. Back then, it was okay for them to write letters talking about their "feverish affections," or poetry to each other. Male or female, they'd hold hands and hug, and even kiss. Overall, there was an intensity there that later became frowned on, because as usual, people had to overcomplicate things that should have stayed simple, like letting people love who they wanted how they wanted, as a friend or otherwise.

At the time, Jack thought it looked nice but never been able to be in a position to experience it himself. Now he was, right here, a thousand years in the past, and while Hiccup lacked the requisite parts (and if Jack was really honest with himself, the feathers) for him to be romantically interested in him, Jack understood that whole "romantic friendship" thing now. He understood the letters and the hugging and the endless talking. He understood wanting someone else to get what they wanted and needed to be happy. For instance, whenever Hiccup talked about Astrid, who he clearly had a crush on, Jack had the overwhelming urge to try to play matchmaker when it was something he'd never had a lick of interest in before.

Jack wanted to stay here in this place, where he was trying to know someone else and be known, where they hovered between friendship and brotherhood and some other intangible something, for as long as he could.

Most of all, he just wanted more time. There was nothing worse than having best friend material dropped in your lap and understanding there was only so much time to cram a lot of friendship in.

"You know, I never really thought about it that way?" said Jack, in answer to one of Hiccup's observations. "But sometimes I do that, too. Like where you have that moment where you step back and just realize you're staring out from your own body. Like, oh look, this is a hand. My eyes are looking at it and I'm this giant bag of like bones and skin and all that, looking out at the world and I have a hand that can move and touch things when I want it to."

Jack held up a pale hand and splayed it out, looking at the stars between his fingers.

"It's weird, isn't it?" said Hiccup, holding up his hand and splaying it out, too. "Sometimes I'll sit there and something will happen and I'll think 'I'm going to remember this moment, I'm going to decide to remember it, even if it's boring, even if nothing really happened' so that I can look back on it later and realize that time passed and the whole world shifted. Then that specific time is gone and you're at a new one and you realize everything's moving, especially time."

"I know what you mean by that time thing. It was weird for me when I woke up in the pond because it was all so new," said Jack, lowering his hand. "Since I remembered words and ideas and all the things I knew but not who I was, I looked out at the world like I was living just in each moment. So I felt myself inside my own head like that all the time. In some ways, it was great because you can feel so much joy when you're doing that. In everything. In flying on the wind, in sunrises and sunsets, in the way the leaves look when they land on water. You can hear a kid laugh and for a second that's the whole world, a kid laughing because of you, because you started a snowball fight. The downside is it's hard to look inward and figure out who you are, if you're just reacting to everything rather than thinking about it. I spent a long, long time figuring myself out, and I kept looking for answers from outside myself instead of inside myself."

"Do you know who you are now?" asked Hiccup.

"Mostly. I don't think anyone knows everything they are at any time though. That's one thing I figured out, that since you're always changing and parts of you are always new, you can't know yourself once and it all stays the same forever. But North taught me that people have all these layers, and in the middle, they have their center. Once you know what it is it makes things easier."

"What's that even supposed to mean, having a center?"

Jack sat up and turned to face Hiccup where he lay, his arms folded behind his head.

"It's like this. Imagine there's like...a bunch of hollow wooden dolls, each inside the other, and you can open each one up to see a smaller one inside."

"Okay."

"So imagine I've got one in my hand, and it looks like me. It's my doll, and each one is a layer of me. The layer on the outside is maybe the cockiness. It's the way I act confident all the time. It's how I carry myself, like I don't need anyone."

He knew now that it wasn't his true self but that self-protective front was still deeply ingrained. It was part of him and some parts of it echoed with truth. He could be rash and overconfident at times. Jack mimed taking a doll apart.

"So you take that one apart and you see the next doll underneath. Maybe this one is, I don't know, how nice I can be. Maybe it's the part of me that's friends with the other Guardians - that's friends with you now. It's quiet, but it's the part of me that likes being around other people."

"The part that's been in play all this time that you've been nice to me," Hiccup pointed out. "Where you want to be friendly with people."

"Exactly. It's as much a part of me as the part that can take care of himself."

Jack mimed taking apart another doll.

"Then there's the part of me you haven't seen much of. There's the part where I'm tough and stubborn and don't back down from a fight. Even a little vicious. Sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it gets me into trouble."

Another layer.

"Then there's the part where -" He hesitated here. "There's the part that's how lonely I was, and unsure, and sometimes angry. It's the part that's afraid of things. I don't always like that part of me but it's there."

He moved on before Hiccup asked questions about it, reached into the pocket of his hoodie, took out something small, and said, "Then, at the very center, there's this."

He tossed it to Hiccup, who nearly fumbled and dropped it in the dark. The only light they had right now was the dim light of the moon so the Viking sat up and held what was in his hand directly in the moonlight. He took a good, long look at the little painted figure he now held, his eyebrows raising when he saw that it was painted to look like Jack.

Then his face took on a sardonic expression that was obvious to Jack even in the dim light.

"At the center, there's a tiny, wooden baby?"

Jack laughed so hard at the fact that Hiccup had said that same thing that he had once said that it echoed a bit through the little cove they were perched at the edge of.

"Look at his face," Jack finally said, his voice still tinged with mirth. "What do you see?"

"He's...happy."

"Like he's having fun - as much fun as a tiny, wooden baby can have anyway."

Jack held out his hand and Hiccup tossed the figure back.

"That's what's at my center, someone that has fun, someone that likes to help other people have fun. I like it when there's joy in the world. I like to cause it, to protect it in people - especially kids. I like to live in each moment of it that I see."

"So...what's at my center?" Hiccup asked.

"What do you think is there?"

"Probably failure? Maybe a bit of social awkwardness - and can 'loserness' be an actual substance at the center of something?"

Jack's face fell. "Do you think I'd be friends with a loser?"

Hiccup's eyes reflected the light of the moon and stars a bit more sharply. "No."

"Then what do you think is there?"

"I dunno. I guess maybe someone who's kinda smart. At least for around here."

"You're smart for anywhere," said Jack. "In the last few days of talking to you, I've heard more original ideas than I've ever heard in my life. I've talked about stuff with you I never would have thought of on my own, even if I lived a million years."

"I guess I'm an okay person, too."

"More than okay."

"I wish it felt that way all the time instead of just when I hang out with you," Hiccup said ruefully.

"It can, if you let it," said Jack, tucking the wooden figure back in his pocket. "Do you wanna know what I see? What I see shining out from under all the other layers? I might be wrong about it being your center - only you can really decide that for yourself - but I think I have something of an idea, at least."

"What do you see?" Hiccup asked, hesitantly, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"Flexibility. I see compassion and someone that sees the world a different way from most people. I see someone that tries to see it in new ways. You explore things and you explorepeople." Jack leaned in to look Hiccup in the eyes. "And let me tell you something: living three hundred plus years has taught me that it's those kinds of people that are the ones that change the world for the better."

Hiccup looked like he was on the verge of tears now and he sat there almost rocking back and forth for a moment, his movements hesitant, before he rocked forward enough for his head to thud against Jack's shoulder. Jack pulled him close, a hand resting on the back of his head, thumb rubbing gently against the fabric of his woolly hat.

"Why do you have to leave?" Hiccup finally asked. "You're fixing the sleigh so you can leave after you help me, aren't you."

"Yeah, we are, and we have to because - because we were taken from really far away. Really, really far away, and we have to go back to help other kids. We also can't really exist here. We're the best ones to help someone like you with all this, but we're not really made to be here, you know? It might hurt us if we stay too long. It's spirit stuff."

"Will you ever be able to come back?"

Jack's miserable silence was answer enough and Hiccup finally wrapped his arms around him.

"I wish you could have lived here," said Hiccup. "Well, no, like I said before, I wouldn't wish Berk on most people, but I wish wherever we both lived, it had been the same time and place."

"Look at it this way, me and the others are spirits, right?" Jack said, voice cracking just slightly. "That means we're really good at that whole being somewhere in spirit thing. Or with someone."

Hiccup finally let go of Jack and fell back to lay on the rock. Jack joined him, shoulder to shoulder, and Hiccup leaned his head in close. After a moment Jack hooked his arm through Hiccup's just because.

"Tell me what you guys call the constellations here," said Jack, nudging his shoulder against Hiccup's. "Then when I'm back home and looking at the sky, I can think of them as being the same ones you're seeing."

"Okay, well, see that shape right there?" said Hiccup, pointing upward. "That's Neely the Voluptuous. Bit of a bawdy story behind that one, apparently, but my dad always tells Gobber to shut up when he tries to tell me it."

"With a name like that, I can imagine," said Jack, raising an eyebrow.

"And that's Hurg the Hunter right there. Those three stars are his belt and that's his club that he uses to fight dragons. Over there is Bjorn the Batterer, with his dragon-cleaving sword. And that's the - dragon."

"I'm noticing a definite recurring theme here -" Jack started to say but Hiccup shushed him.

"No, there's a dragon," he whispered, his voice anxious. "Above us right now. Don't move. Don't speak."

Jack saw it now, a dark shape zipping overhead, moving through the sky in one liquid streak of darkness, a shadow briefly blocking the stars. He stayed silent as he lay there with Hiccup, though he did move just a little, inching his hand out just enough to grasp his staff where it lay next to him. It streaked overhead about two more times and Jack could just vaguely hear wings flapping on the wind, but only because the wind was his friend even in this time like it was in his own time, and it carried the sound to his ears. Otherwise, the shadow in the sky would have likely been silent.

Then, just as quickly as it came, it was gone.

When Hiccup was sure he didn't see it overhead, he sat up, looking up at where it'd been, face beaming excitement.

"It was probably scouting."

"Does that mean your village is going to be attacked?"

"Soon, prob'ly, but it'll be impossible to predict when. Might be a few days, might be a few weeks. There's never really a pattern to it." He looked excited and was still looking up into the sky. "I think that was a Night Fury!"

"A Night Fury?"

"It's one of the rarest and most dangerous dragons. No one's ever seen one or at least if they have, they haven't lived to tell the tale. They say it's the offspring of lightning and death itself," Hiccup said gravely.

"Okay, one, I didn't know lightning and death could have offspring, and two...you Vikings really do have a flair for the dramatic, do you know that?"

It took several days of painstaking labor - and Hiccup sneaking things out of the forge - but eventually the sleigh and the Snoggletog decorations were finished. Jack had to admit, for the limited material they'd had on hand, they looked pretty great. The tree had been built out of wood, designs scored all over its surface by Sandy's dream sand, green and red and blue dyes used to stain it and give it color. Little metal ornaments and baubles had been forged by Hiccup to put on it. Round river stones had been attached to it and somehow North had done something to them so that they glowed with a clear, sparkling light.

The altar to Odin that they'd put together vaguely reminded Jack of a nativity scene, but the figures inside it weren't the shepherds and wise men he was used to seeing. There were little figures of carved fish and goats and pigs, as if instead of offering material food they were replacing it with a sacrifice of the effort that had gone into carving them. Tooth had gone above and beyond with the figures of birds that they'd made, plucking some of her own feathers to put on them, creating a bright splash of color and making them look almost real.

There were also wreaths with holly and mistletoe and and strings of colorful wooden baubles on vines to put on doors and hang from the village's torches.

Hiccup was grinning as he looked on it all, his eyes wide with wonder and his face full of pride for the part he'd had in it. For though the Guardians had helped him put it all together, his touches were everywhere, in some of the carved designs, in the metal baubles on the tree that he'd forged in secret along with the parts of the sleigh, in the colored stain that had been painstakingly painted on everything.

Part of him was in every part of it and it was the best gift possible he could give to the village, not just to try to get their approval, but to show how much he cared about them and how sorry he was for every mistake he'd ever made.

"It's perfect," he said. "We couldn't really do anything about the feast this year, but at least we'll be able to give them this."

"Actually," said North. "My magic sack can help with the food. Usually, is just for holding things much bigger than it is, but sometimes, when I have need, it puts out things that are just the right gift at just the right time. Last time I opened it, smell of roast turkey came out."

Hiccup bounced in place at that. "Oh my gods, this is perfect. All of this is perfect. How are we going to move it all, though?"

"Don't worry," said Jack. "You can leave all that to us. Meet us at the edge of the woods after nightfall, okay? Then we'll make this a Snoggletog they'll never forget."

Jack decided that the best way to go about this was to let Hiccup have a bird's eye view of it. After the sun set and everyone in the village had gone inside to get away from the cold, Hiccup and Jack walked into the center of the village.

"Shouldn't we be helping?"

"I'm gonna help the others in a second. What you get to do is watch." Jack held out his hand. "Ready?"

Hiccup reached out and clasped his hand in Jack's own. They both lifted off the ground and up into the air.

"Oh. Oh, the ground. The ground isn't supposed to be down any farther than my feet," Hiccup babbled nervously.

"Would I let you fall?" With that, Jack flew Hiccup up to the roof of a nearby building in the plaza and set him down gently. "Time for the grand event, my friend, and you get the best seat in the house."

Hiccup settled in, taking a seat and looking down with curiosity at the plaza below. Jack flew off and waited at the center. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a massive hole appeared in the ground where the old tree had been before the wreckage had been cleaned away and the top of the wooden Snoggletog tree poked out through it.

"Are we in the right spot?" Bunny called up.

"It's perfect," called Jack. "Bring it up."

The tree rose out of the ground on a cloud of yellow sand and the Guardians rose out with it.

"I'm gonna close it up around the base, Sandy," said Bunny, "don't bring it any higher."

There was the tree, sparkling in the night, even bigger and better than the last one had been. After it was in place, the replacement altar was brought up next, then a table with a full Snoggletog feast that Hiccup hadn't even seen yet. After it was all in place, the Guardians that could fly started flying around, spreading the wreathes and garlands all over the plaza. Sandy smiled widely at Hiccup as he flew by, stringing garland over the building he was sitting on.

After it was all finished, North looked up at Jack.

"Ready to add the coup of the gra, Jack?"

Jack grinned a grin that was almost wild and started to fly through Berk, spreading his frost everywhere. It was only a light dusting, more cosmetic than anything, and in his own humble opinion, it was the best work he'd ever done. The ice spread out in beautiful fractal shapes and elegant spirals, covering every building and structure in the village. Here and there, ice sculptures sprang up, of snowflakes and stars and other elegant designs that were without specific form, created just to look beautiful. Jack flew back around to the center of the plaza and then flying upward in a rush of wind, he went into a spiral, staff outstretched.

When he floated down, there were gentle flurries of snow floating down with him.

Hiccup felt a single cold snowflake land on his nose and Jack flew over, floating in front of him.

"Happy Snoggletog, Hiccup." Then he moved to the side. "So, what do you think?"

"It's amazing," said Hiccup slowly, breathless as he looked out on it all. Then he looked over at Jack and at the Guardians floating in the air and standing on the ground below. "You guys are amazing."

Jack held out his hand again and floated Hiccup down from the roof.

"We're going to go off and hide. It's a spirit thing, you know? We can't just walk around in broad daylight in front of people. Why don't you get everyone out for the feast?"

Hiccup nodded happily and the five Guardians went to the top of the Great Hall, Sandy floating North and Bunny up there on a golden cloud. Then Hiccup started banging on doors and shouting.

"Happy Snoggletog, everyone! It's Snoggletog! Come on out and get your fill of the feast!"

The Vikings of Berk started to walk out of their doors, their eyes widening as they saw the spread, the tree, the altar, and the decorations. Their voices were hushed in wonder and awe and then started to rise into sounds of laughter and celebration.

"It's a miracle! It's a Snoggletog miracle!" someone called out.

Stoick walked out of the Great Hall and down the steps, his jaw gaping as he saw it.

"What – what is all this? Who did this?"

"It's a miracle!" said Gobber. "Odin must have taken pity on us and decided to let us have Snoggletog anyway!"

"It wasn't Odin – well, I guess it was Odin indirectly, but I did it," Hiccup chimed up and every eye in the village was now on him. "Or at least I helped. Do you like the little figures in the altar? I put a lot of work into some of those."

"Hiccup, you couldn't have done all this by yourself," said Stoick.

"I had help from my friends," Hiccup said, trying to figure out if he should explain and how to even do it. "I prayed to Odin for help with fixing Snoggletog after I ruined it and five spirits came down from the sky and –"

"Hiccup," said his father and instead of pride or astonishment, for some reason there was disappointment in his voice. "I didn't raise you to lie."

"I'm not lying," Hiccup insisted, taken aback.

"Why do they think he's lying?" Jack hissed, where he hid with the other Guardians on the rock face that made up the roof of the Great Hall. "Why would he lie about something like that?"

"I don't understand," said Bunny. "Look at the little mite, can't they see he's telling the truth? It's all over his face."

"You're taking credit for something you obviously didn't do." Stoick shoved Hiccup to the side in the thoughtless way he always did and looked out on the crowd. "Alright, who did this? Mulch and Bucket, was it you? It had to be more than one of you."

"No, dad, dad it was me, me and my new friends –"

"What friends?" Snotlout chimed in. "Who'd want to be friends with you?"

At that, the twins tittered with laughter and the older Vikings shook their heads, but it was clear they weren't shaking them at the twins.

At that, Jack started to stand up and fly down from the roof but North grabbed him by the hoodie before he could.

"Jack, we can't interfere in this."

"But they're –"

"Is not how the story goes. No mention ever of us."

At that, Jack turned to look at North with his eyes narrowed.

"The story? What story? What are you talking about?"

"His name, when he first told it, is familiar to me," said North. "No time to explain now, but you must trust me on this. We must not interfere or bad things could happen."

"Whoever did this, I don't know why you want to keep it secret, but thank you," said Stoick to the crowd, completely ignorant of the fact that Hiccup was shaking his head miserably behind him. Jack could barely stand it. It was as if none of them could see that Hiccup's expression was utterly devastated. "It looks like we get to celebrate Snoggletog this year after all!"

The Vikings all cheered and headed over to tuck into the feast, leaving Hiccup standing there, casting about fitfully as if he'd just been robbed. His father took him aside, roughly, by the shoulder, and even on the roof of the hall, they could hear his tense words booming up to them.

"Hiccup, how could you take credit for someone else's work?"

"Dad, I didn –"

"I didn't raise you this way! I didn't raise you as someone that would spread lies about doing something another hard-working Viking has done. There's no way you could have moved that tree on your own and there's no one –"

"There's no one, what?" Hiccup shot back, anger tinging his voice. Stoick looked somewhat taken aback.

"No one that would help me, right?" said Hiccup. "Because I'm Hiccup the Useless, and who would want to help me, when I ruin everything?"

Jack started to tug away from North again, but he wasn't letting go of Jack's shirt anytime soon and when he caught Jack's eye, he hissed, "Jack, I know you want to be helping him, but please, please trust me on this. You will cause more harm than good."

The problem was, Jack did trust North, and he remembered the look that had been on his face when Hiccup had told them his name. At the time, he hadn't given it much thought, but now it was clear that North knew something the rest of them didn't, and Jack did trust that there was some way going down there could cause Hiccup harm.

Jack stayed where he was, flattened against the stone, but the only way he was able to do it was by punching the roof to let out his frustration.

Down below, Stoick looked less angry now and more troubled by the fact that his son looked so troubled. Hiccup, in the meantime, was watching a village and a tribe celebrate, knowing that he'd never be a part of it.

"Son, I know you feel guilty about ruining the holiday, but this isn't the way to – Hiccup, where are you going?"

The boy had started to stomp away.

"Hiccup!"

Now Hiccup started to run, into the woods.

North's grip slacked and Jack finally tore away. He flung himself off the roof now and flew down after Hiccup, dodging between buildings so he wasn't seen. It wasn't long before he caught up with him, standing motionless on the snow-covered trail, away from the village, but not far beyond the treeline.

"Hiccup?" Jack said gently. "Hiccup, we saw what happened…"

Hiccup wasn't crying. After something like that, most children and even most teens would've been crying, but he wasn't. That worried Jack more than if he had been.

"I don't suppose you can talk to them, can you? Let them know you helped me?"

"North says something bad will happen. I don't really know what he means but he knows something –"

"Right. Something bad. Spirit stuff. That's nice and vague. That's pretty convenient, actually," Hiccup said sardonically, with a dismissive shrug.

"Convenient?"

The other Guardians had caught up to them now and touched down behind Jack. He looked to them, wordlessly entreating them to help him.

"I understand what this is now," said Hiccup, lifting a hand and dropping it, as he turned to face them. What was frightening about his expression was that it wasn't sad, it wasn't hurt, it just wasn't…anything. It was the expression of somene overwhelmed by a misery so deep that his face had just given up on trying to express it in any way.

Instead, his sadness came out in the hollowness of his voice.

"What do you mean?" Jack asked slowly, tilting his head in alarm.

"I asked Odin for a sign," the Viking said shakily. "I asked him…to help me fix the holiday, and for – for proof things would get better." Hiccup held out his arms and dropped them. "Pretty good sign, I'd say. Loud and clear, thank you, Odin."

"A sign of what? What do you think it's a sign of?"

"Odin did this. You heard what they said – it's a miracle. It's a miracle, which means he did it himself, and I think I just… I think maybe I've gone a little crazy."

"What - I don't –"

"I've gone crazy, which, when you get down to it, was probably inevitable anyway. I mean, I'm weird enough, I don't fit in, there's probably plenty of crazy in there. Why wouldn't there be one more reason I don't belong here? I'm sure they'll all be happy if they find out – they'll finally have a reason to ship me off to sea."

"You're not crazy. What makes you think you're crazy?" Jack asked.

Hiccup's eyes met his. "Because you're not real."

Jack recoiled as if he'd been slapped, shoulders rising and falling as he drew in hitched breaths.

"Why would you say that?" he said, his voice thick.

"You're not real. Odin fixed it, by himself, and made it so I'd have no part in it. Because I'm not meant – I'm not meant to ever have a part in it. And I imagined this. That's – that's what happened." Hiccup waved his arms around at all of them. "I imagined aaall of this. I mean, Snotlout's right, who'd want to be friends with me?"

"Why do you think you imagined us?" asked Tooth softly, her voice overwhelmed with sadness.

Hiccup looked to Jack. If his face hadn't known to express what he was feeling before, apparently, it had finally figured out how to do it now, and to Jack seeing it was like being shot in the heart.

"You can't be real, because – because the only way someone would like me, the only way someone would want to be my friend," said Hiccup slowly "…was if I made them up in my head."

"Hiccup…"

"I'm never going to belong here. I'm never going to belong anywhere."

With that, he started to stumble off back towards his house.

"Hiccup, come back. Where are you going?" asked Jack.

"I need to go work on my list of sheep names."

"Hiccup, please," Jack said, flying over and grabbing him by the arm.

Hiccup just shook him off. "You're not real. You're not real…"

He broke into a run and that was his litany as he ran away, leaving the Guardians shocked – and in Jack's case, utterly heartbroken – on a snowy trail in the moonlight.