I can't move, was his first coherent thought. He couldn't open his eyes either, he was stuck. He tried again. Nothing.

It was like he could feel himself trying, but nothing was happening. His brain told him he was moving but he knew he wasn't. Couldn't.

Next he started hearing things like shouting and heavy footsteps. Why can't I move? How long have I been here? he thought to himself.

He'd been here long enough to ponder that, he supposed.

His brain felt like it was stuffed with straw. Everything felt clogged and foggy. He couldn't think. Despite everything he was surprisingly calm about that. Maybe it's because you can't think, that everlasting, stubborn and sarcastic voice in his head helpfully supplied.

He tried again. Still nothing. His body wouldn't listen to him, his eyes wouldn't open. The last thing he remembered was…

North, Bunny, Tooth, Sandy, and him had some sort of meeting with Father Time? Then Pitch was there and–

Now he was panicking. He tried screaming but nothing changed, no sound left him. Like a soul trapped in an iron shell.

He struggled some more, and despite his efforts it felt like nothing was changing. Was he in a coma? Was he going to stay like this forever? He didn't want that. What if this is what a "normal" afterlife is like?

Suddenly he wasn't so envious anymore.

He strained some more, again nothing happened. He was beginning to feel helpless, the effort to move, scream, anything was giving him a headache and somehow tiring him out all at once.

In his head, he was thrashing around and screaming like someone was about to chop off a limb, yet his body remained eerily still and silent.

Anyone on the outside looking in would have absolutely no idea there was a helpless consciousness screaming and struggling for freedom.

Then, dim, so dim, and yet he saw it. A light.

°•○●○●○●○●○●○● ◇ ●○●○●○●○●○●○•°

Valka had very rarely lost to Dragon Trappers. If there was ever a crew of hunters that could defeat her it was either Viggo or Bludvist. Not these people. They didn't even have the regular equipment Dragon Hunters usually came with, in fact, it seemed they had never laid eyes on a dragon ever in their lives.

But Valka lost badly, she couldn't even figure out how they did it. One moment she was plucking off crew members, the next they were plunging towards the ocean. Luckily for her and Cloudjumper she was able to redirect them into crash landing on a nearby island.

It's only a matter of time before they come to collect the rest of their prize, she thought bitterly, inspecting the wound inflicted on her dragon expecting to find the infamous Dragon-Root Arrow. But no, they didn't even have that.

What she found instead was a very small circular hole running through her dragon's wing muscle. Whoever these people were, they had extraordinary aim. But it was also very probable that they had a stroke of luck on their side.

One thing she knew for sure, in all her years of injuries, she'd never seen one like this. Ever. She noticed that there was no projectile to pull out so she hoped that it had fallen out in the crash and wasn't so deep into her dragon that she couldn't see it.

"Once we find a place to lay low, we'll set up camp for the night, okay Cloudjumper?"

Her dragon only whined in pain.

°•○●○●○●○●○●○● ◇ ●○●○●○●○●○●○•°

Good news, his head no longer felt like someone shoved straw up his nose, and he could see and move, bad news?

Now it felt like, not just his head, but his entire body was stuffed with needles.

Every ounce of him was sore or tense and every time he moved even the slightest bit, he felt like he was about to hurl.

The swaying didn't help. Oh, right, he was on a ship. Not a cargo ship or a cruise ship either, a ship, ship. Like a pirate ship.

He groaned, whether in pain or inconvenience it didn't matter to him, either way it pretty much summed up his life right about now.

Why was he surprised? He went through a magic portal, in fact he took everyone through a magic portal into an unknown dimension and what? He just expected everything would be fine?

Wait, aren't I supposed to be dead? He realized with thrilling confusion that he was in fact, very much alive, if the state he was in right now had anything to do with it.

Jack stared at the ceiling for a moment just resting, trying not to think, not to feel, to just listen. He listened to the waves, the wind, the men outside, the footsteps coming closer to the door.

Jack's eyes widened with sudden adrenaline, allowing him to shoot up and reach for a lost weapon.

He never found it.

The person entered and immediately, a much needed bucket was placed in front of Jack just in time for him to quite literally projectile vomit into it.

He groaned again.

"You alright there?" A male voice asked above him. Jack looked up, feeling much better after… that.

He was greeted by a man with blond hair. His blue eyes peered down at Jack like he was some sort of peasant, and he guessed compared to him, he might as well be. This guy looked like a pirate. Like one of those stereotypical pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean.

"Where am I?" Jack croaked out, his voice sounded like someone attacked his throat with a cheese grater.

"You're in the Atlantic, we're heading west to the New World, now tell me where are you from?" He nodded to Jack like they were taking turns. They definitely were not. Especially since Jack didn't know how to answer that.

The New World…

He'd heard those words spoken from excited merchants and traders, little kids expecting to find werewolves and dragons coming out of the woodwork, or to fight like their fathers in some war that no one cared to know the cause of.

Jack had also happened to hear a lot about pirates, for a time, they were the most popular horror story. Of course Jack never lived close to the coast, but when living in the "Golden Age of Piracy" you tend to hear a bunch about coastal places being raided and pillaged.

"What are you? Merchant, Trader?" Jack asked, even though it was insultingly obvious. Each word he spoke sounded nothing like his own. The man stared into Jack's soul like he was searching for something. Then he sighed, turned to his waist and held out what Jack vaguely recognized as a waterskin.

Jack refused to be gullible in this situation. Therefore he decided to stare at the waterskin for an unnecessary amount of time before he got bored and flicked his eyes to the man sitting in front of him.

He seemed to realize the situation because his eyes softened just a fraction, "it's only water lad, nothing else. Trust me, if I wanted to kill you, I would've done it by now," he clarified.

Jack felt a chill race up his spine, he was already weak and cornered, he couldn't leave could he?

He just downed the waterskin like his life depended on it. Immediately both his head and his throat felt better. Not good, but better, either way he still felt like shit.

"You're not scared of pirates are you?" The man asked, and Jack had to admit, scared wasn't a word he'd use to describe what he felt at the moment. Weary and intimidated? Sure. But not necessarily scared. "Not really," he answered, "that's what you are huh?"

"That's what people call us," the man said, Jack looked at him.

"If you travel around on a huge ship with a crew of people who all collectively steal treasure and raid towns with you, then yes, you are probably a pirate," Jack retorted, he was too tired of being forced into magic portals and waking up on random ships feeling like shit to be fun and polite at the moment, thank you.

Then a thought hit him, slammed into him like air resistance. He could drink water. He could drink water. It didn't freeze?

He looked around for a moment, the bed had absolutely no frost despite him sitting on it. The waterskin he was still holding was completely frost-free as well.

Right, Manny doesn't exist here, he remembered, which again had him wondering how he was even alive.

The man in front of him just watched Jack go through a mini crisis without even the slightest twitch of a muscle. He couldn't tell what he was thinking, he could only tell that the man must be weary of Jack in some way. But why?

"How did I get here?" He asked next.

"We found you in the nest of a dragon," the man answered, and whatever Jack was expecting it wasn't that. He blinked, "a dragon…" he repeated, "I take it you don't remember the whole ordeal?" The pirate asked, Jack just shook his head. "Do you remember how you got there?"

His response was another denial, "do you rememeber anything?" The man asked again, and Jack could've sworn he'd heard a twinge of worry in his voice.

A pause stretched the silence around them, Jack refused to confirm or deny, he'd let the man make his own assumption.

He stared at nowhere in particular while the blond studied him, "You know, I can always tell if someone's lying," he said, suddenly the man's stare seemed that much colder.

"But everyone has their secrets, my name's Charles Eastwood, tell me you at the very least 'remember' yours," he said, standing.

They shared a look, "Jackson," he replied, looking away again. Eastwood nodded with a sense of finality and left the room.

°•○●○●○●○●○●○● ◇ ●○●○●○●○●○●○•°

It'd been five days now and Cloudjumper wasn't looking any better, in fact he looked worse.

The wound now had greenish-yellow pus coming out of it and red streaks ran from it like rivulets. It had stopped bleeding, but any and all movement and it would start right back up again.

Valka, after the second day, had concluded that yes, there was still a projectile in there, but Cloudjumper would refuse to let her near enough to do anything about it.

Eventually they had somehow got into the air each day long enough to practically crash land on smaller islands on the way.

Her end goal was to fly back north and hope to find someone to help them, thing is, they'd crash landed off course so many times Valka lost track of where north even was anymore.

That was until they found a harbor.

Hope flared in her chest at the sight of people, yet was quickly extinguished by the fact that these people didn't look like Norsemen or even people from the north.

Their buildings were different, larger. And those ships, they were the same style ship as the Hunters who had captured innocent dragons and injured hers.

Speaking of her dragon. Cloudjumper roared at the strain of his wings and started faltering in the sky. They had to land, unfortunately the only solid land was the land they were currently hovering over.

They fell, and Valka could do nothing but hold on for dear life as her and her dragon plummeted toward the woods nearby.

°•○●○●○●○●○●○● ◇ ●○●○●○●○●○●○•°

Jack slept for weeks afterwards, he was honestly surprised at how much one could sleep after, well, sleeping. He woke up at one point deciding it was best to walk around a bit, especially on something as motion-sick inducing as a ship.

After that everything was mostly fine. Jack couldn't find Eastwood anymore but the rest of the people on the ship were nice enough. Rowdy enough too and very... physical.

Jack could just be walking around and some random guy whose name he couldn't remember would sling an arm around him and go off about something Jack pretended to listen to, oblivious to Jack's discomfort. Oh yeah, these people don't walk through him.

Suffice to say, he bumped into crew members more times then he could count, forgetting he was now solid. Oh yeah, and then there was the eating problem. He had problem remembering... everything. Eating, drinking, sleeping.

Nothing came to him naturally because why would it? All of that was survival, Jack's never had to survive in that sense for 300 years. The crew tried to remind him before he passed out, so at least they were helpful.

Of course Jack couldn't just go wherever he wanted. He gets it, he supposed, he was an unfamiliar person so of course they'd have restrictions as to where Jack could wander.

One of those restrictions was that Jack couldn't go below deck, he had to stay above deck or where he was sleeping. He guessed they were just worried Jack might steal something. Hey, you live by the sword you die by the sword right?

He understood.

What he didn't understand was the noises he'd hear from below deck at night. They were like an animal's. Low growls and high pitched whines played in his ears all night making it hard to sleep.

He couldn't lie, he was curious. But, these people saved his life, the least he could do is respect their privacy right?

The next morning he woke up to the sound of someone informing them they had arrived at their planned destination. The New World… Or in other words, what would become America.

He walked out to the sun shining bright in his eyes and the sound of excited chattering from the others.

"Good morning Jackson," a familiar voice said, he turned to see Charles Eastwood looking at him with a small smile. Jack grinned, "you're actually out and about this time!" He said before quickly changing course to a question that had been nagging at him since he woke up a few weeks ago, "you mentioned the New World but you never mentioned where in the New World," Jack arched a brow in an unspoken question.

Eastwood just shrugged, squinting through the sun and the strong breeze, "take a guess," he said looking at the tall weathered buildings. Jack looked too, thinking he recognized the architecture, really it could be anywhere but what first came to mind was, "Boston harbor?" He guessed looking back to Charles.

Eastwood smiled, small but genuine and nodded to him before patting his shoulder and shouting to his men to dock here.

They were apparently planning on staying for a week or so, Jack never thought to ask why. He figured, pirate stuff and left it at that. He just hoped it wasn't the pirate stuff that involved death and destruction.

Yet oddly enough he never got that kind vibe from these people, they seemed genuinely friendly and energetic. Like a theater class. He smiled at that. Jamie was part of theater class...

When he eventually did ask what they were doing all he got was, "selling some useless goods, we could get more from 'em if we sold 'em,".

Jack helped them load things onto the dock beside the ship. Flyers stuck to buildings clued in that they were here to sell stuff at an auction coming up. Smart, really, even if Jack knew that most of these things were probably stolen, what was he going to do about it anyway?

Jack also learned that the saying, "so and so cusses like a sailor," was absolutely true. These people cussed a lot. Especially when lifting something heavy and they end up constantly running into things. Jack opted for the smaller stuff.

Soon enough the sun had set. All the ship crew members and him were sitting around lanterns and barrels, the rest were drinking and laughing and overall having a good time. It was fun... kind of. Jack found enjoyment from watching these men laugh with each other like family.

They told stories, liked to tell stories, wild stories that sounded impossible, yet pulled you in at the same time. Right up his alley.

"What about you Jack?" A slurred voice asked him, for a while Jack just sat and did nothing but listen in the background, but now, everyone was looking at him, "Oh, I don't have anything like you guys," he said, and it was mostly true, there really wasn't anything he could say.

He was met with a whole bunch of 'boos' and 'come on!'s. He looked over to where Charles was sitting, but the damn pirate was looking anywhere but Jack. Traitor.

Would he seriously have to say something? Ultimately yes, considering these people were looking at him with the stubbornness of a bull. He cringed.

Fine, he'd tell a story, but he didn't know where to start. Not his immortal life, that was for sure, he'd have to change so many things he's getting a headache just thinking about it. He could start in his mortal life, yet truthfully it wasn't all that interesting.

Except for maybe that one time… yeah, he'd do that.

Sighing for dramatic effect he stood up. Everyone was looking at him, even Eastwood was looking at him with a raised brow that said, "I don't remember" my ass. Yeah, okay whatever.

"So, I was about seven at the time–

"Wait, how old are you?"

"I– seventeen," he answered, they didn't know that? He thought, "anyway, I was seven at the time and living with my mother and sister, my father had died when I was five but that's a different story. I had a striking number of one friend, if she could even be called that at the time.

"My friend Alice, and my sister Mary. Everyday we'd go to Alice's place because her parents owned the town's horse ranch. I would head over there in the afternoon because her parents paid me to look after the horses sometimes. My sister had to come around because... reasons, Alice stayed because she was 'bored',"

Jack noticed some of his audience looked bored. Oh if only they knew what he was planning, ultimate mission? Make at least one of them hurl.

"Today, however was different. For context I'm remembering this entire story based off of what Alice told me because I was arpund seven at the time and dont actually remember it," Alice definitely does though, he thoguht to himself.

"I came by for training as Alice dubbed it," a bunch of very predicted and very annoying, "ooooooo"s broke out. Jack paused again, he saw some of the seafarers perk up to look at him. At least they were interested now.

"Now, I'm fast, fast enough to outrun most people. But if you think for a second I'm fast enough to outrun a horse in terrain like that run-down, beat up ranch? Your expectations of humanity are way too high.

"Suffice to say, apparently I made a horse mad with my sunny perosnality and got trampled. This caused the horse to rear me in the face and pop my eye out of its socket," He could see most of them were interested now.

"Wait, but you still have your eye," one of them pointed out, and Jack grinned, it was exactly what he wanted, "I know, that's because Alice had to shove it back in," A little exaggerated, he'd admit. But Jack couldn't help but watch in pure glee as a few of the pirates stared at him with shock, a few with disgust and some with pride. Charles was just flat out grinning and shaking his head, "hey, it was still attached to my head, therefore it's still mine!" He reasoned.

"Did you know you can still see out of it too?" More faces of disgust, "it was like one half of the world was the horizon the other was the ground," a sailor ran for a bucket. Jack couldn't help but chuckle at his misfortune. Totally worth it. "Anyway, I woke up feeling terrible and had to hear what happened from Alice who never looked at me the same again."

°•○●○●○●○●○●○● ◇ ●○●○●○●○●○●○•°

Valka was in trouble, big trouble, Cloudjumper had become unresponsive a short time after the crash which left Valka worried and with no way home.

She had tried taking her armor off and searching for help on the streets but no one here spoke Norse, not only that but the other women here all wore the same, excruciatingly uncomfortable looking dress. And they stared at her like she was the weird one.

She wondered how far she'd come from her home. It was significantly warmer here than the Sanctuary, but then again the Sanctuary was made of ice. This place had the sun beating down like it had an endeavor to melt them all like a candle.

Eventually she had to head back before she got lost. Luck was not on her side today.

She looked after Cloudjumper until the sun started to set. Though she couldn't get him water, or food, and she definitely couldn't get him medicine. She didn't know this place, stealing would be hard, the risk of running into someone unwanted was high. Especially if these people hunted dragons.

Yet, what other choice did she have? If she didn't do something soon her dragon would die of infection and she'd be stuck here without being able to understand anybody. Therefore stealing it is.

°•○●○●○●○●○●○● ◇ ●○●○●○●○●○●○•°

Valka crouched down and looked over the docks loaded with trading ships. She saw a number of things she would have stolen for herself, but this was for Cloudjumper, not her. Did these people not sell anything else other than clothes, jewelry, bread and potatoes?

She walked around some more, always keeping a hand on or near her dagger, and tried not to attract too much attention. But the more she walked the more she realized that was a little impossible when everybody else was wearing clothes so complicated and unnecessary that her and her plain brown cloak stood out like a sore thumb.

There were some things that were enjoyable. For one, the docks specifically had some sort of odd aura of community and chaos. That's what it was, organized chaos. Someone was always hanging from something or shouting, or laughing, or joking. It was probably the only thing here that reminded Valka of home. Berk.

I need to get out of here.

°•○●○●○●○●○●○● ◇ ●○●○●○●○●○●○•°

Jack was setting a few more things down, checking the barrels when suddenly, he heard the footsteps of someone running. Specifically someone running away from him.

He turned on his heel fast enough to see a tall person wearing a cloak running down Boston Harbor with a piece of meat in their hands. He knew immediately what happened.

They'd just been stolen from.

"Hey!" He called out, running after them. Whoever they were, they were fast. Very fast. But as mentioned previously, so was Jack.

The mystery person led the both of them through the chase of his life. They turned corners at random and threw things to the ground in order to trip him up. He went around or vaulted over them relatively easily.

But all they really needed to do was lead him through a crowd. If there was one thing Jack was a newbie at, it was weaving through a crowd.

So of course that's exactly what they did. Just his luck.

The thief suddenly took a tight turn through a narrow alley, leading him into one of the main streets.

People were everywhere, and it didn't take long until Jack lost sight of where the thief had gone. Especially with people pushing and shoving past him.

"Hey– wait– could you–" then Jack got an idea. He backed up into the alley, well, more like shoved into the alley, and looked around.

The roofs of Boston were flat, and they happened to have window sills on the outside thick enough to hold his weight and allow him to climb up.

Small victories.

That was his plan, and it worked out pretty well. He more or less stumbled up there with mild bruising.

He crouched down at the edge of the roof and prayed to God the thief hadn't left the main street. His prayers were answered when his eyes spotted a brown cloak weaving through the hundreds of people of Boston.

It wasn't hard to spot. Everyone here wore either wigs or obnoxious dresses. Seriously, if he had to wear something like that you might as well wrap him in a trash bag and vacuum all the air out of it. That must be suffocating.

He ran across, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and forgetting to hesitate when he almsot tripped an died.

Soon enough the thief left down an alley at the edge of Boston and walked into the woods.

Okay… sure… woods person. He sighed and practically tumbled down the side of the building. Never mind, more than a mild bruising.

Thankfully he was more familiar with forests than streets and followed the figure easily. All without making a sound. Perks of climbing trees at an early age.

The thief then turned to a specific tree whose branches reached lower to the ground than the others, lifted them up and entered them like a curtain. Jack waited in silence a moment before following.

He stopped just out of sight to listen for anything. When he heard nothing but the breeze, he gently pushed the leaves aside to reveal a small clearing which was hidden by rocks and shrubs. In the middle of it–

Jack felt his breath hitch. Laying in the middle of the clearing was the most magnificent creature Jack had ever seen.

It had a light brown scale color that soared down its back like a cape until it faded into a cloudy gray. There were large red frills on its head like a mane and spikes ran down its back fading from red to a sky blue. It was huge too, bigger than any creature Jack had been this close to so far.

Then he noticed something, it's breathing was ragged like it was in pain. He looked around, there was no sight of anyone, the mystery person was momentarily forgotten.

He walked around it, not getting too close, then it let out the most heart wrenching whine ever, like a kicked puppy.

There was no water nearby, the closest source was a waterskin Jack had with him. He slowly stepped closer, unclipping the waterskin and kneeling down in front of the creature as he brought the water to its mouth and tilted his hand downward.

Immediately it responded by purring and lifting its head to gain better access. That's also when Jack noticed the familiar, and clearly infected, gunshot wound located in its wing. Jack hissed in sympathy.

He'd have to do something about that. Something this amazing couldn't die in a place like the fucking colonies. Even Jack knew this was the last place he'd want to die.

He should know.

He died.

In the fucking colonies.

He met the creature's eyes. They were wide and amber colored. Jack could see appreciation in those eyes. He could also see a person standing behind him in those eyes.

Jack stood up and pivoted, coming face to face with a person in full blown, brown and blue armor which had slits for eyes. Oh, and a staff pressed to his throat.