*DEEP breath* hi

I keep forgetting that I post on wednesdays. "but Josie, it's 4 am on Wednesday" I KNOW. THIS IS MY BEDTIME. I'm a night owl, it's on principle that I post in the early morning hours, not the afternoon. I also have homework but that's beside the point.

summary: the dragon riders get some mildly upsetting news. (they are in denial)

Anyways

"So you just left them?!"

Danny's pacing quickened. "I didn't know what else to do, Sam! They said they were leaving! They're going east, do you know what's east? Chicago, New York City, the Pentagon! If they don't get themselves killed, someone's gonna do it for them!"

"I told you that we shouldn't have waited this long." Tucker reprimanded from where he was sitting at the foot of Sam's bed, "I mean, even if they aren't going to figure this out on their own, someone's going to discover them anyway!"

"Yeah, Danny, do you know how much money some of my parents' friends would pay for dragon-skin accessories?"

"-I mean, heat tracking equipment, motion sensors, trail cameras, regular cameras, tracking devices,"

" – not to mention what they'd pay to own a dragon!"

"- and that's not even touching the real high-tech stuff the government's hiding!"

" – no, scratch that, do you know how much money they'd make with those dragons?"

"You guys are not helping!" Danny exclaimed, bringing both of his friends to a grinding halt.

"Sorry." Tucker muttered.

"What did you even say to them?" Sam drew the conversation back on track.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck again, resuming his pacing. "I - I said I'd join them! That they needed my escort for safe passage. I may have…fibbed? And said the woods were haunted?" He cringed and avoided his friends' stares.

"So, what, you said you needed to pack a bag?" Sam asked.

Danny nodded.

She groaned, rubbing her hands over her eyes. "Oh, this is bad, Danny. This is, truly, amazingly, stupidly bad."

"Well, do you have a plan to get them back to the Viking Era?" The ghost boy snapped, feeling his eyes flash green for a moment.

He was met with a very telling silence. Danny crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, I didn't think so."

Sam's nose was perpetually wrinkled. "Well, if you'd've just let us help we could have come up with something better –"

Danny resumed his pacing with a grumble, shaking his head rapidly. He turned his back to Sam, who thankfully took the hint.

"...okay. Fine, what's done is done. So what are we gonna do?" Sam leaned forward on her bed, nestling her hands in her lap.

"What else can we do?" Tucker said, PDA firmly in hand.

Danny found that was a question he was growing to hate. Especially since his next plan involved Aunt Alicia's farm, which he already knew was going to be a bad idea.

"Well, whatever your plan is, it better be soon. You've already left them waiting for how many hours now?"

"Uh, it may have to be a few more." Tucker suddenly said, tone dropping in seriousness.

Whirling to him, a feeling of concern settled in Danny's chest. "What's going on?" He said, noticing Tucker hunched over his PDA.

"Ghost, out in the suburbs, heading straight for downtown." He glanced up from over his glasses, "the Red Huntress has engaged."

Ice sparked in Danny's chest, and he pushed it outwards. His transformation rings snapped into existence, raking over him. "I'll be back," he said, phasing out of Sam's window and into the dusk.

Oddly enough, it was not his ghost sense that led him, but the sound of battle. They were already well out of the suburbs, blasts were flying in every direction.

He knew Valerie wouldn't appreciate him butting in, she never did, but really what did she expect? His obsession was protection for crying out loud. That included her, too!

He found her pretty easily against the skyline, even if her armor wasn't red, the city lights reflected off her every movement.

But he could not see the ghost she was firing at – invisible, probably, she did have heat sensors in her helmet. If her blasts remained true, and most times they did, it was keeping to the sky. so what he did see was a shadow blotting out the stars at a speed that would almost give him whiplash.

Danny began to dart forwards, but then a familiar whining sounded, dragging him to a stuttering halt. A purplish blast lit up the sky in a wispy explosion as it clipped Val's board, sending it sputtering.

Danny's already-slow heart skipped a beat.

Oh, that was not a ghost. Definitely not a ghost.

What were they doing here?!

Toothess' blast must have knocked loose a stabilizer, because Val didn't seem to be able to hold her balance – with a shriek the Red Huntress fell off her board and began plummeting.

Danny dove after her, narrowly avoiding her careening hoverboard as it grazed past his shoulder. She yelped as he pelted into her waist, they both tumbled onto the street rather clumsily. Danny took the brunt of the blow, his shoulder scraped against the asphalt and if he didn't break skin he knew there would be a bruise there come sunrise.

A groan left him as Val shook her head. "What the – Phantom? You – get off me!" She exclaimed, throwing her arms out and nearly hitting him in the face.

Rearing back, Danny phased through her hastily, the part of her body he was under fell to the street with a startled gasp. She quickly scrambled to her feet, spinning to face him. Her helmet was still concealing her face, but he could imagine what it looked like.

"You're welcome," Danny snarked, rubbing his shoulder gingerly.

Her hoverboard crashed between them then, sending both teens jumping back in surprise. It sparked and sputtered, and then the pronged end broke from where it was impaled into the asphalt, sending the rest of it toppling to the ground.

Val's posture shifted from aggression to dismay, and then her shoulders hunched in anger. "What the hell, Phantom?" Her arms were thrown out to her sides, and Danny quickly took a few steps back in case she threw a punch.

"You act like I'm the one that did that."

"I don't need your help," She hissed, and alas her tone still betrayed her distrust. Danny's core sparked annoyedly as Val knocked against her blaster until it sputtered and turned back on.

"Woah, what are you doing?" He asked, darting into the air to block her view of the sky. He didn't know where the vikings were, and that was a whole other can of worms he'd open when he got to it, but he wasn't going to risk her shooting at them again.

"Phantom, move before I blast a hole in your chest!" Val exclaimed.

"Aw, you're giving me a chance this time?" Danny cracked a smile, and then promptly yelped and dodged a laser beam.

The Red Huntress turned her back to him, gaze still plastered to the sky. Any other time, Danny would have relished in the fact that she even considered doing that – she still really only tolerated him on a good day. But right now he had more pressing matters to attend to.

He darted in front of her range again, and Val dropped her blaster with enough attitude to rival a very angry Sam, "Phantom, I swear to God –"

"I already did my own patrol tonight!" he yelped, "There aren't any ghosts."

"Well then maybe that ectoplasm-filled head of yours is finally giving out, because I wasn't called out to Camp Skull-and-Crossbones for nothing." She hissed.

What.

"Who called?" Danny dared to ask.

"Who do you think? The caretaker was nearly killed today! Luckily, I was nearby. Those three tried to ambush me in the suburbs." Val caught something over Danny's shoulder and fired.

There was a yelp from behind him that the ghost boy recognized as Hiccup's voice, and he whirled around to see them crouched on the top of a nearby building.

"Ghosts?" Danny squawked.

"What, you don't recognize them?" Val crooned sarcastically, "you must be getting rusty, Phantom." she tapped her helmet, "They're speaking a dead language."

Danny swallowed, trying not to blink rapidly. "V–Red, I promise –" He almost started reassuring her that the people she was hunting were, in fact, very much alive, but stopped by quite literally biting his tongue.

He couldn't just explain away living dragons in Amity…that would bring too much unwanted attention. Well, it would bring more unwanted attention, apparently. Just how many people had seen them?

Sam and Tucker's warnings were now ringing through his ears.

Damn it.

He'd waited too long.

"...just – let me deal with them?" He tried to bargain, gesturing tentatively to her hoverboard. "Your gear's broken and, actually, you're technically in my haunt, so…"

"Your haunt?" Val scoffed in a disgusted manner, and her blaster swiveled to aim at him again, "I don't know why I keep letting you get away." She muttered, head turning to look at her still-very-much-broken hoverboard.

"Yes," Danny's voice took on a ghostly hiss as his core was angered at her words, "my haunt." He grit his teeth, trying not to bare his fangs, "I let you play hunter here because you helped me save Elle. Don't make me regret that decision."

If it were up to him, she wouldn't be hunting at all. There was only so much work to do, after all, and if she got hurt, that'd be on his hands.

But the fact that Val felt like she needed to hunt in the first place (regardless of how she felt about Phantom) meant that Danny wasn't doing his job well enough. So letting her run some sections of Amity was his punishment for that.

At least, as long as she didn't get in the way. He'd have to stop her if it came to that.

Thankfully, he didn't seem to need to do that tonight. Val knew better than to pick a fight when she was already down.

With an angered growl, she holstered her blaster and stalked up to her hoverboard, pressing a button on her arm and letting it compress back into her suit. Her helmet turned, and Danny could feel the last venomous glare she sent him.

He tried to ignore the way his stomach filled with butterflies. He sent her an apologetic smile. "I'll talk to them, okay?"

She only flipped him off in response, stalking down the street and disappearing into an alleyway moments before a single car came moseying its way down the street.

Danny watched her leave, feeling prickles dance on his spine. He closed his eyes to try and compose himself. He sucked in a deep breath, and opened them, staring at the hole in the asphalt.

Slowly, he turned his gaze back to the rooftop, where he could see the shape of Hiccup and Astrid (and probably Toothless, though it's camouflage obviously made it hard to tell) staring down at him.

His core could feel the fear in the air.

Danny sighed wearily.

He was expecting a sword at his throat, a punch to his gut, a curse to his ears, when he landed on the roof.

He was not expecting, amidst the disheveled hair and shaking limbs, for there to be a fire in their eyes that was more desperation than fear.

"Do you have medical supplies?"

"What?"

Astrid turned with blazing eyes. Face twisted in fury, disdain, awe, and everything in-between. She spoke, much louder that time.

"Do you have medical supplies?"

Hiccup didn't know when he began to suspect, but it was probably somewhere between the transition from half-wilderness to entirely man-made terrain as they ran from the red-clad ghost behind them.

Not that he was paying much attention, you know, between working with Toothless to avoid fireballs that didn't look exactly like fireballs, coming from some metal weapon that shouldn't be able to do that.

But the wagons with lanterns that were much too light to be lanterns rolling by themselves down the streets were hard to miss, and that's not including the increasingly higher buildings they had to dodge as the ghost behind them kept attacking.

And then there was the ghost itself. Its armor…shined like metal, but it didn't have the clunkiness. It had an echo to its voice that didn't scream ghostly, but it did scream other nonetheless, and the…the thing it was flying on…

It looked like it was made from the same material as the wagons below. Like it was made from the same material of that thing he caught a glimpse of in the sky just a few minutes after Phantom's friends departed from them in the Ghost Zone.

And then Toothless managed to land a hit on it, and instead of just flying off, the ghost on it fell with a shriek.

It fell like a human, and it only took a bank around yet another impossibly-lit building for Hiccup to realize that's exactly what it was.

They came to a pretty ungraceful landing on top of the building, at which point Hiccup and Astrid both stumbled off Toothless and ran to the ledge.

This place was undoubtedly the source of the strange light on the horizon. The streets were so bright that he almost forgot that the sun had set.

Astrid was mumbling expletives as Phantom appeared, speaking in his native tongue to their red-clad adversary.

She – it was probably a she – was holding the weapon like a crossbow: that is, part of it was wedged into her shoulder, but it barely resembled one. Just like the men that had hurt Stormfly.

Hiccup didn't realize he was shaking his head until she shot a blast at Phantom, and he froze in shock.

They weren't friends. That much was obvious, but they weren't entirely hostile.

"Hiccup…" Astrid wavered, and he turned to look at the shieldmaiden.

There was a fear in her eyes that he rarely saw – it was just barely rising over her usually-steeled gaze, and it made his own stomach twist.

"This…isn't just ghost stuff, is it?" She whispered, and Hiccup didn't know if he could answer her.

"I don't know." He choked out, but even as he said that his own words from that evening were ringing in his head.

He did say distance worked differently there. Maybe time does, too.

"Maybe this place just has – s-some sort of–"

"Watch out!" Astrid grabbed his shoulder and yanked him backwards, prompting a shriek out of Hiccup as another blast from the red-clad person narrowly missed his head.

He stared at the air, the afterimage of the bright blast lingering behind his eyes as his breath picked up pace. Whatever explanation he'd had was completely lost to him.

Astrid creeped back to the ledge with shaking fists. Toothless was at Hiccup's side in an instant, crooning worriedly and nuzzling his side.

"I'm okay, Bud." he croaked, more out of habit than anything else.

Stumbling to his saddle bag, Hiccup pulled out Inferno, seeking the comforting weight in his hand. He didn't know if he was going to use it, but there were obviously even more answers here that Phantom hadn't given them. If he had to use it to make him talk, so be it.

Hiccup spun with slightly-less furrowed brows and walked to join Astrid, finding that the red-clad person was stalking towards what remained of the thing she was riding. She grappled with something on her wrist, placing a foot onto the hump of metal, and then it inexplicably melded back into her suit.

"Oh, Odin's Beard…" Hiccup heard Astrid choke at the sight. Toothless nuzzled his way between them, and both of them set a hand onto his head.

It reminded Hiccup of his shield-bow, but this was so much more advanced than what he'd made three years ago, and for some reason that made his stomach churn with anxiety instead of excitement.

It wasn't just more advanced, it was too advanced. It was all too advanced. The buildings surrounding them should be collapsing under their own weight, they should be billowing smoke for them to be emitting the amount of light they were. Terrible Terrors should be hunkered in every corner they could find, they loved this kind of habitat.

But they weren't.

Just like they weren't in the woods.

The red-clad girl stalked off without another word, leaving Phantom to watch her leave with an apprehensive posture.

Another pair of too-bright lanterns appeared to catch the ghost's attention a second later. Another metal wagon rolled by, stopped at a cross in the road, and then continued.

Hiccup wanted to sink to the ground. Instead, he forced his knees to lock as Phantom made his way to them. He landed on the roof next to them with nary a sound. Hiccup leveled Inferno with the ghost apprehensively.

Astrid whirled to him. Hiccup swallowed.

"Do you have medical supplies?" She cracked, and he faltered.

"What?" that was Phantom's voice, surprisingly.

A rattling, impatient breath left Astrid, and Hiccup found himself dropping Inferno slightly.

"Do you have medical supplies?" She asked again, nearly hissing.

Phantom's glowing eyes were eerie in the night, and Inferno reflected the toxic green in lieu of its own fire. His brows were pulled together. His lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Follow me." He croaked with all the composure of someone watching their kingdom fall to ashes around them.

Stutteringly, moronically, Hiccup sheathed Inferno. Toothless crooned nervously, brushing up against his side, and he swung a leg over him.

Astrid was quick to follow. Her grip around his waist was almost aching.

They launched back into the impossibly bright night.

"What happened?" Phantom asked as they banked right. A loud, brash sound made Hiccup nearly jump out of his skin, and his gaze snapped down to find a line of the metal wagons flying down a road like ants.

"Some men came to the camp." Astrid's voice was a dangerous monotone. "They – shot Stormfly, I think. She's grounded. We need stitches. Gauze."

"Antiseptic?"

"What?"

The ghost snapped his gaze away from them way too fast. "Nothing."

He turned back ahead of them.

They landed on another roof a few minutes later. It was made of something like brick and it was an ugly type of tall with another smokeless chimney.

Phantom led them down a ladder on the side, peering into the glass windows that reflected too much stagnant light from the outside to reveal anything on the inside. He knocked, softly at first, and then more aggressively.

Hiccup watched him do this with a numbness spreading through him that almost made him want to start shaking. He wrapped his arms around himself, vaguely feeling Astrid and Toothless clamber down next to him.

He looked out to the street below them. To the too much road and too little grass, to the buildings that left no room for trees, to the strange poles strung with wires and lanterns with posters that were too flimsy to be dragon perches –

The window slid up with a ferocity. A vaguely familiar face, one without as much makeup and black hair a bit frizzier at the edges, leered from the darkness.

She spoke in that strange language again, stepping aside for the ghost like she'd been expecting him to appear, and began to say something else, but cut short.

Her eyes widened in what Hiccup refused to believe was horror when she saw them.

"Danny." she breathed, hands tightening on the window sill.

The ghost said something to her in their language. It was a pleading type of quietness.

His friend paused. She stared with impossibly purple eyes.

And then she stepped to the side.

Warm air hit them as they entered, despite the lack of smoke from the chimney. It billowed curtains that looked like silk. The room was dark, save for a blue-ish swath of light, but it was not from a lamp. It came from the wall. A painting was plastered there. A glowing painting, in a bulky black, shiny frame. It was hazy, like a ghost, like it wanted to keep moving, but it didn't.

And then it was gone with a quiet click, leaving only a green haze.

A second later, blinding light, this time from above, made him jump out of his skin, and amidst the spots now dancing in his eyes Hiccup found the other friend of Phantom's at the opposite wall, finger lifting from a tiny lever. He had something in his hands that promptly fell to the rug on the floor.

Something that was probably a curse flew past his lips as Phantom made a beeline for a patiently waiting container on a bed. He ripped it open with a dull crack. Something that was almost parchment crinkled as he shifted supplies to the side.

"Are dragons allergic to alcohol?"

"What?" Hiccup heard himself ask.

Phantom turned again. His face read guilt, and Hiccup didn't like that look on a face that wasn't human anymore.

"Alcohol. Can dragons handle it?"

Hiccup opened his mouth to answer, but Astrid beat him to it.

"Yes."

The ghost nodded, seemingly to himself, and then turned back to the supplies in his hands.

Hiccup could not stop the shaking now. His feet were rooted to the floor. He swallowed thickly, gaze raking across the dreary room. It was all blacks and purples. Those dyes were so expensive. The glass was expensive. The brick was expensive. The metal ladders and the not-really-cobble roads outside were expensive. How were they able to afford this? How was it so bright? How was it so warm? There were no fires. There was no smoke. The thing on the wall that was once glowing was not, now, but it still had a strange green tint to it. What was that buzzing? It had not left since they entered this place. It was low, in the back of his mind, it was almost pulsing, but not in the way a heartbeat did – it was irregular, like the sound of a storm on the horizon, or a stampede in the distance, but it wasn't getting any louder. It was just there, creeping up his spine like a chill in late autumn. Like paranoia in the shadows of the night, just there to remind him that it existed.

Something was being pressed into his hands.

Hiccup snapped his head down to see the girl with a crystal cup in her hands. It was filled with water in the same way her eyes were filled with worry.

"Oh." Hiccup croaked, suddenly realizing how dry his throat felt. His fingers clutched around the freezing glass, and she removed hers from it in response. He glanced to the side to see Astrid with one in her hands as well.

"Thank you." He croaked out of instinct. He brought it to his lips.

It did not have the twinge of mead to it. It must have been boiled. He hoped it was boiled.

Despite the ache in his throat, only enough to wet his tongue passed Hiccup's lips. He watched a single drop of water hang on the ledge, and then cascade down the side as he lowered it. He held the glass in two hands, fearing what would happen if he let himself use only one.

Astrid did not sip hers. She did not seem to be staring at anything other than the space between Phantom's feet and the floor.

"Why didn't you come?"

Phantom paused. Astrid continued, with a small shake of her head.

"To the campsite. We waited for you. We shouldn't have, but we did. Because we – because they trusted you." A bit of anger fizzled into the air at that, and Hiccup swallowed nervously.

The ghost did not move for a bit. His hand had stalled in the inches above the medical supplies.

His friends had grouped together, closer to the door on the opposite wall. They were watching with wary, confused gazes.

"I'm sorry." Phantom said.

For some impossible reason, it sounded genuine, and Hiccup wanted to laugh.

It also did not answer Astrid's question.

"You lied to us." He croaked.

He watched Phantom as he slowly began selecting things again. It was almost methodical. "I did." He stated.

"Why?" He asked. Hiccup's knuckles turned white against the glass.

Phantom finished packing. He shoved the supplies into his pockets, and turned back to them with a pitied lilt in his eyelids. They flashed, briefly, to the world outside the window. Toothless growled from his place near the sill.

"What else was I supposed to do?"

The buzzing pulsed again, just briefly, with another brash crack of sound. Hiccup jumped again, hand falling to his belt as a light flashed behind them.

Hiccup did not have an answer for him.

They left the room almost as soon as they'd entered. Hiccup didn't remember where he'd set the glass of water, only that it was in his hands one minute, and then they were empty as he climbed back up the metal ladders and onto the roof.

Instead of seeing stars, all Hiccup could make out were the thousands of unwavering lights littering the horizon.

"Let's go." Phantom said, and began rising in the air.

This time, Hiccup did not move.

This was moving all too fast. He knew they needed to get back to Stormfly, she was injured, someone was on his riders' tails, they needed to make sure they were okay.

But Hiccup stared at those lights until his eyes itched, and when he blinked, it felt sluggish.

Toothless brushed up against him worriedly. He vaguely felt himself place a hand on his head.

"Hiccup?" Phantom called his name from somewhere up above him.

Hiccup's eyes did not move.

"Where are we?"

It was the ghost's turn to ask 'what'.

Swallowing, Hiccup licked his lips. "There are no dragons." He cracked, like that was the most pressing matter, and paused for a bit too long as he forced down the burning in his nose, "anywhere. They're not here."

Phantom was silent for a long while. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup saw him crossing his arms nervously over his chest. When he spoke, there was an upwards pitch in his voice, like a nervous child of sorts. "Dragons aren't – really a thing… here?" He started, but his tone tightened so much that it sounded like a question.

"What do you mean?" Astrid asked.

The laugh Phantom gave was short and nervous, almost like a bark. "I mean…up until three days ago, I thought they were myths."

That sent Hiccup's heart plummeting. He teetered briefly to the side, and thankfully Toothless stiffened to support him.

Those two men back at the campsite weren't just surprised at tamed dragons, they were surprised at dragons.

It was not the first time he'd seen that expression.

"You – the way you looked at our dragons when we first met." The accusation was heavy in the air, but the ghost in front of them nodded slowly. Hiccup felt like he was crazy, analyzing the way Phantom had seemed so clueless around them. Now he wished he kind of was.

"I was… a little shocked." The ghost admitted, "I mean, I've seen a ghost dragon before, but she and her brother –" he cut himself off and shook his head, "Actually, that doesn't matter." He said, wringing his hands together nervously.

He studied Hiccup and Astrid for a moment with a very cautious look, fangs working at his lower lip. "...that's one of the reasons I had you all stay at the camp."

"One." Hiccup croaked, and he hated the way his voice sounded.

He could have accepted that – Phantom, wanting to protect the dragons from prying eyes. He sometimes did much the same, especially if hunters were nearby.

But dragons don't just go from being an everyday occurrence to becoming as elusive as gods in a few days' time.

Hiccup also could have accepted the fact that they'd lost a couple days in the Ghost Zone – a week, even, may have been fine.

But the word years was starting to creep its way into the part of Hiccup's brain that fueled his fear, and he wanted to snuff that out before it became an uncontrollable blaze.

Phantom's voice seemed to be lost to him again, and that same fearful look was back on his face. His eyes kept darting to the sky, like he was waiting for something to materialize and interrupt the confrontation.

But nothing came, and he stayed silent.

"Phantom," Hiccup's voice came out more firmly, he finally ripped his eyes away from the horizon. "Where are we?"

He meant to say 'when'. He wanted to say 'when'. But he didn't want the answer to that, not really.

The ghost boy visibly swallowed and seemed to give up looking to the sky. Instead, his glowing green gaze dragged across the buildings surrounding them. To the flashing lights across windows that Hiccup couldn't see the source to, but knew they were those same metal wagons from before. There were so many of them, how were there so many of them?

"...This is Amity Park." Phantom whispered, but the echo in his voice made it sound impossibly loud. "It is a city in a country on the continent of North America."

Neither Astrid nor Hiccup spoke, waiting for the ghost's next words. Phantom finally turned to them, glancing first at Astrid, then to Toothless, and finally to Hiccup. "We're halfway through Tvímánuður," he paused to scrunch his nose in confusion, "a-and…"

Phantom rubbed the back of his neck restlessly. "I think you guys have a hunch…that the portal you went through doesn't just send you to different places."

Hiccup nodded numbly, feeling insane to be doing so. Astrid's shoulders hunched in the way they did when she braced for impact.

"How long were we gone?" Hiccup asked, Toothless' scales were suddenly too far beneath his fingertips. His own voice sounded distant in his ears as well. Astrid was apparently next to him, gripping at his upper arm with a shaking hand.

Fangs appeared behind Phantom's lips as he grimaced. When he spoke, it was like a pitiful breeze. "...A thousand years? Give or take?"

A coldness burst in Hiccup's chest at the words. Goosebumps raked up his arms. His lungs suddenly burned, and his stomach felt like an iceberg had run into it.

His mind had frozen.

And then it wasn't.

Like a cave collapsing on top of him, thoughts that he didn't want to think began bombarding him.

They didn't get the message back. About Johann.

They didn't come back. They'd vanished. They'd left Berk, Dragon's Edge, their parents, Heather, Dagur, Viggo, the dragons –.

They'd fallen into the Ghost Zone, and in an instant, everything they'd ever known was gone.

A shuddering breath left Hiccup, and he swallowed, suddenly thankful that they hadn't eaten dinner in their haste. His cheeks were now cold from blood that was no longer there.

"A thousand years?" Astrid repeated like she couldn't quite believe it, and Hiccup wished he didn't.

Phantom didn't shake his head. Instead, he held up his hands in a half-hearted shrug, like he was trying with everything in his power to lighten the mood. "Welcome to the 21st century?"

Astrid's grip was suddenly bruise-worthy, but the pain was grounding Hiccup, so he didn't shrug her off. Instead, he closed his eyes, like he could block out the noise, the too-persistent light, the glowing dead boy in front of them, the stars that had kept revolving around a world they were absent from for a millenia.

"I-I think I need to sit down." Astrid's voice was barely audible, and Hiccup was being dragged down too as he felt her sink. Not that he cared, he suddenly felt like letting go of her would cause the rest of the world to dissolve around him.

Toothless crooned warily and settled to the ground with them, opening a wing to provide a canopy, and the noise below them muffled ever so slightly. Hiccup leaned into his side, one arm finding his paw and the other – the one that Astrid still held in a vice-like grip, finding her free hand.

He held on to them for dear life while eyes belonging to a dead boy watched from the sidelines. Phantom was rubbing his chest, and Hiccup was actually thankful when he turned away after a while.

At least he knew how to give them space, but at the moment all Hiccup wanted was time.

Predictably, time didn't give itself to them.

How could he not have noticed?

Strange oddities that he'd waved off as one-offs over the last few days were now snowballing.

The hinges on the door. The paintings on the walls, the fish in the lake – the stars…

The stars. They were…off kilter, in the way that long distances tended to do to them, but they weren't wrong. They'd been the same, as had the moon. And the sun, and the clouds.

"At least the sky's the same." He managed to croak out.

Astrid's head swiveled up, like she wanted to check for herself, but the lights on the horizon still blocked their view.

Still, a small, watery chuckle left her. "Yeah. Yeah, they're…" she trailed off, gaze dropping back to the roof.

She never finished the thought.

Eventually, Hiccup shook his head, pressing into Toothless' side until he could feel the bumps of his scales against his skull. "How are we going to tell the others?"

He looked to Astrid, the woman he loved who usually had the answers he did not, in vain. He didn't think it was fair to be looking for anything from her this soon after such a staggering revelation, but he did nonetheless.

She didn't respond. Hiccup swallowed. Toothless crooned.

"Phantom," Hiccup asked, and the ghost boy spun hesitantly to face him. He caught his gaze and held it wearily before Hiccup found his voice again.

"Your promise to get us home." He croaked, "Was that a lie, too?"

He didn't want to be holding onto false hope, because he could feel his heart clinging to the ghost's past reassurances in desperation. Which was almost childish, in a sense. Phantom hadn't been very secretive about his lies, but now that Hiccup knew why…

What else was I supposed to do?

Hiccup had too much experience with groundless promises. He didn't know if he wanted to know if they were stranded, especially so soon, but he needed to know before that hope took root.

But unbelievably, miraculously, Phantom shook his head. "No. There's – there's a way to get you guys back." He admitted, and for the first time it actually felt like he was telling the truth.

Hiccup blinked slowly. "And what might that be?"

"It's an artifact called the Infimap?" Phantom shuffled his feet in the air, clasping his hands behind his back, "It can take you back to the exact moment you came from. I've just…gotta find it first."

Hiccup should have felt relieved. Maybe, looking back, he would realize he did, but it was so miniscule that it almost didn't matter. The idea of getting back to a world – to a time – that made sense lost a lot of its comfort when he already knew things he should never have been privy to.

They should all have been long dead by now.

He hoped his dad was in Valhalla with Valka. That thought, oddly enough, brought comfort to him. Maybe they were taking a break from the never-ending feast to watch this escapade of theirs.

He hoped they hadn't been waiting to find them. A thousand years was a long time.

"And this Infimap. It's going to be pretty hard to find, right?" Astrid's question sounded more like a statement, and Phantom nodded his head gravely after a moment's hesitation.

"It's…been stolen. Tracking down the perpetrator isn't going to be easy, but Sam, Tuck and I are already working on it."

Astrid and Hiccup shared a look, and he sent her the faintest of reassuring nods. "I guess we've done more with less…" Hiccup sighed, hating the way his lungs spasmed.

"Okay." Astrid nodded. Her grip loosened on his arm. "Okay. We need to get back to Stormfly."

Hiccup nodded numbly, but his knees felt just a bit too weak to stand.

"Well look what the night fury dragged in!" Snotlout's voice greeted them as they landed. They had made it a few miles north of the camp, nestled next to a creek that led back to the lake. Phantom's glow was the only source of light.

Hiccup dismounted Toothless wordlessly as Astrid trudged over to Stormfly. She dropped to her knees in front of her dragon, planting her hand on her snout.

"Woah…what's wrong with you guys?" Fishlegs asked.

Snapping his gaze to Phantom, Hiccup found that the ghost was looking at him now. His hands were clasped in front of him, shoulders just slightly hunched.

He sucked in a sharp breath as the rest of the dragon riders turned to him as well, and his heart began pounding nauseatingly all over again.

"Nothing." Astrid snapped before he could say anything. She turned to glare at Phantom, "The supplies?"

"Right," Phantom rambled, pulling out the wad of medical equipment from his pocket, "can I see the injury?"

"No." Astrid snapped again and stood abruptly. She turned with a nervous glare to the ghost, holding out her hand.

If Phantom was offended by this, he did not show it. Only his lips thinned as he pressed something that looked like a needle and thread in a protective wrapping into her hands.

Astrid's nose wrinkled in a strange mixture of disgust and fear as her fingers closed around it, and then Phantom pulled out a small bottle.

"This is antiseptic." He explained with a slightly shaking voice, "It'll kill any infections. Clean the wound with it before you stitch it up."

Shaking hands latched onto the bottle, and Hiccup saw Astrid's jaw clench as she gave a curt nod.

"Killing infections? Sorry, Phantom, that's just not possible." Fishlegs sounded reminiscent of talking to one of his nephews. There was a twinge of nervousness there as Astrid turned back to Stormfly.

It should be impossible. Hiccup corrected, but did not speak it. His stomach was churning again, manifesting in his fists gripping the hem of his tunic and twisting it until his knuckles turned white.

Astrid did not retort to Fishlegs' comment either, only guiding Stormfly to open her injured wing. She uncorked the bottle and poured it on with little hesitation.

"Astrid –!" Fishlegs fretted as Stormfly squawked in pain, rearing away from the antiseptic, "You don't know what's in that – I thought you said we can't trust –"

He cut himself off as Astrid gave him a stern, tired glare out of the corner of her eye.

There was a silence, broken as he took two cautious steps back, and then whirled to Phantom.

There was a suspicious, silent look on his face. "What did you do?" He accused.

"Fishlegs," Hiccup finally found his voice, giving his friend a stern look. "Now's not the time."

His eyes widened in disbelief. "You, too?" His eyes flitted rapidly between Hiccup and Phantom, "What happened out there?"

Biting the inside of his cheek, Hiccup watched as Astrid ripped open the protective layer around the needle. Stormfly squawked again, flinching as her rider set a steadying hand on her, and he quickly made his way over to them.

Shushing the nadder, Hiccup scratched her under her chin. Toothless joined him a few moments later, managing to draw Stormfly's attention away from her wing.

"How's she doing?" Hiccup asked flatly, watching the nadder nuzzle Toothless fondly.

An awkward silence permeated the air for a few seconds before Fishlegs conceded. "We got the bleeding to stop…she was able to eat."

Nodding to himself, Hiccup side stepped as Stormfly flinched. He found Astrid tenderly stitching up the wounds, and against his better judgment, he went to get a closer look.

With the blood cleared up, the damage was much more accessible. Many of the smaller ones had scabbed over, which would have been relieving if it was on anything other than the membrane. "We're gonna need to put her wing in a sling." He observed, running an anxious hand through his hair.

Stormfly squawked apprehensively, and empathy blossomed in his gut at that.

The bigger holes were peppered much in the way Stormfly's scale patterns were – there was one larger puncture wound, around the size of an apple, in the middle, and they grew smaller the further they went out.

It almost reminded Hiccup of a crater from a cannon ball.

"What made this?" He asked, and his voice still sounded horribly flat as he turned to Phantom, who continued fidgeting in the air.

The ghost cringed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Buckshot. Probably."

"Probably?"

Phantom shrugged again. "I'm not an expert on guns."

He inched forwards, taking a wide berth around a very suspicious Fishlegs and Snotlout. He crossed his arms over his chest as he studied the wound.

"Guns." Hiccup tested the name on his tongue, picturing the weapons in question. Any other time he would have asked how they worked. Right now, they only brought a sour taste to the back of his throat. "That um, that person that we fought. They had one too?"

He ignored his friends' exclamations of worry, watching Phantom intensely.

The ghost chuckled nervously at that reminder. "Red…she's a bit of a special case." He tested the waters.

That seemed to be the understatement of the week. Hiccup could still see the burning blasts if he closed his eyes.

"Her weapons are more…modified? They're meant to take down ghosts."

"So she shot at us?" Astrid's voice had a sarcastic venom in it, but her touch remained gentle on Stormfly as she looped the needle again.

"She's a ghost hunter, it's her job." Phantom didn't sound very happy about that.

"So, what, she thought we were ghosts?" Astrid scoffed bitterly, and contempt was creeping onto her face. She shook her head angrily. "She was the one riding on some enchanted piece of scrap metal…"

"What?!" Fishlegs butted in, and Hiccup's gaze fell to the ground hastily.

It was strange hearing 'enchanted' come out of Astrid's mouth in such a serious tone. Even with everything they'd been through.

"Why did this…Red think you were ghosts?!" Fishlegs continued, stepping between Hiccup and Phantom, "you don't look anything like them!"

Oh, gods. There it was. That feeling in his gut. Hiccup's breath caught in his throat.

"Yeah," Snotlout jumped on board, "did you hit your heads, or something? What are guns, or this mysterious…infection killer." Snotlout rolled his eyes with some rather pretentious air quotes.

Astrid did not answer, only continued stitching up Stormfly, and Hiccup focused on his breathing. He wasn't ready for this. He didn't know how to do this, he didn't want them to – he –

"And since when do you trust a single word coming out of this guy's mouth, Astrid?" Snotlout continued, waving vaguely at Phantom, "We would have already been on the road home if it weren't for him!"

Hiccup's chest constricted.

"Are you gonna answer the question?" Fishlegs continued, gaze swiveling between all three of them, "why were you being hunted by a ghost hunter?"

Hiccup lurched to the side and gagged.

The way I rewrote this chapter like three different times

Sorry if the pacing was weird, I really wanted to go with the "Hiccup's in shock and time is getting all wonky" vibe.

also, Tvímánuður is like ~September.

But you know, at least Stormfly's getting medical treatment!

*someone, very obviously of a queer denomination, pretends to emerge from a dinosaur egg* "I'm a predator - WAIT...of the APEX variety," user "the_fruity_cutey" on tiktok

until next time my lovelies

~ Local Dragon Haunt